--"At a thought," she answered, preserving the low tone
of the conversation into which they had fallen as if their words could
have disturbed the self-absorption of Captain H. C. Jorgenson. "At the
thought that for all my long acquaintance with Mr. d'Alcacer I don't
know half as much about him as I know about you."
"Ah, that's impossible," contradicted Lingard. "Spaniard or no Spaniard,
he is one of your kind."
"Tarred with the same brush," murmured Mrs. Travers, with only a
half-amused irony. But Lingard continued:
"He was trying to make it up between me and your husband, wasn't he? I
was too angry to pay much attention, but I liked him well enough. What
pleased me most was the way in which he gave it up. That was done like a
gentleman. Do you understand what I mean, Mrs. Travers?"
"I quite understand."
"Yes, you would," he commented, simply. "But just then I was too angry
to talk to anybody. And so I cleared out on board my own ship and stayed
there, not knowing what to do and wishing you all at the bottom of the
sea. Don't mistake me, Mrs. Travers; it's you, the people aft, that I
wished at the bottom of the sea. I had nothing against the poor devils
on board, They would have trusted me quick enough. So I fumed there
till--till. . . ."
"Till nine o'clock or a little after," suggested Mrs.
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