To her surprise, he vouchsafed no answer to this question. “You have the real John Bull prejudice against ‘furriners,’” she said, jestingly. “How is it that you endure me? I am virtually an American.”
“I am,” she said, “and it is your own doing. You took me away from England, from my mother,--my poor darling mother whom I never knew,--and she died of a broken heart. Why did she marry that man?”
“Heaven only knows,” he said, gruffly. “He never was anything but an oily sneak.”
“Would you have married her if she had waited?” asked Nina.
For the second time she saw one of the longed-for blushes on the face of her husband,--a fiery, violent colour that worked itself over his sunburnt cheeks and down his brown neck.
“She was not very much older than you,” she went on, sweetly, “and you must have been very fond of her.”
“As fond of her as if she had been my sister, and no fonder,” he said, impatiently. “Don’t suggest that other relationship. I can’t tell you how it annoys me.”
“Some things that you mind I shouldn’t think you would,” said Nina, wonderingly; “and others that you don’t mind I should think would drive you crazy. You are queerer than I am.”
He was deliberately putting away his pipe, and she knew what was coming. After the fashion of mankind, he was going to swear that he had never loved any woman but herself, that even to mention another was an insult to him.
“Oh, yes,” she said, hastily, “I know. I beg your pardon, and do sit down. You have adored me all your life. All other women have been walking shadows.”
“There you are quoting Miss Marsden,” he said, disapprovingly. “I don’t admire that cynical vein.”
“That reminds me,--I have a letter from her somewhere,” cried Nina, springing up. “Where did I put it? Merdyce gave it to me here at noon and I forgot to read it. Where, oh, where?” and she began ransacking the table, chairs, shelves, brackets, and even the nautical instruments.
At last she found it under the scrap-basket beside the table, and sat down on the floor for its perusal, uttering presently a joyful scream.
“They’re engaged, they’re engaged,--it was a case of love at first sight. Just what I wished and expected!”
“Miss Marsden and Captain Eversleigh. Oh, the darlings! What a fine couple they will make!”