Part 7 (1/2)
”Not even if I asked you on my bended knees?” said Kate. ”Aren't you glad you're cured?”
”Yes,” said Tarrell manfully.
”So am I,” said the girl; ”and now that you are happy, just go down to the 'Jolly Sailor's,' and make poor old Raggett happy too.”
”How?” ask Tarrell.
”Tell him that I have only been having a joke with him,” said Kate, surveying him with a steady smile. ”Tell him that I overheard him and father talking one night, and that I resolved to give them both a lesson. And tell them that I didn't think anybody could have been so stupid as they have been to believe in it.”
She leaned back in her chair, and, regarding the dumfounded Tarrell with a smile of wicked triumph, waited for him to speak, ”Raggett, indeed!”
she said disdainfully.
”I suppose,” said Tarrell at length, speaking very slowly, ”my being stupid was no surprise to you?”
”Not a bit,” said the girl cheerfully.
”I'll ask you to tell Raggett yourself,” said Tarrell, rising and moving towards the door. ”I sha'n't see him. Good-night.”
”Good-night,” said she. ”Where are you going, then?”
There was no reply.
”Where are you going?” she repeated. Then a suspicion of his purpose flashed across her. ”You're not foolish enough to be going away?” she cried in dismay.
”Why not?” said Tarrell slowly.
”Because,” said Kate, looking down--”oh, be-cause--well, it's ridiculous. I'd sooner have you stay here and feel what a stupid you've been making of yourself. I want to remind you of it sometimes.”
”I don't want reminding,” said Tarrell, taking Raggett's chair; ”I know it now.”
A RASH EXPERIMENT
The hands on the wharf had been working all Sat.u.r.day night and well into the Sunday morning to finish the _Foam_, and now, at ten o'clock, with hatches down and freshly-scrubbed decks, the skipper and mate stood watching the tide as it rose slowly over the smooth Thames mud.
”What time's she coming?” inquired the skipper, turning a lazy eye up at the wharf.
”About ha'-past ten, she said,” replied the mate. ”It's very good o' you to turn out and let her have your state-room.”
”Don't say another word about that,” said the skipper impressively.
”I've met your wife once or twice, George, an' I must say that a nicer spoken woman, an' a more well-be'aved one, I've seldom seen.”
”Same to you,” said the mate; ”your wife I mean.”
”Any man,” continued the skipper, ”'s would lay in a comfortable state-room, George, and leave a lady a-trying to turn and to dress and ondress herself in a pokey little locker ought to be ashamed of himself.”
”You see, it's the luggage they bring,” said the mate, slowly refilling his pipe. ”What they want with it all I can't think. As soon as my old woman makes up her mind to come for a trip, tomorrow being Bank Holiday, an' she being in the mind for a outing, what does she do? Goes down Commercial Road and buys a bonnet far beyond her station.”
”They're all like it,” said the skipper; ”mine's just as bad. What does that boy want?”