Part 30 (1/2)
”Really now, I fancy I have always comported myself as a gentleman--”
”A trifle too much so, truth to say!” she retorted.
”Ah, indeed. However, this is now quite another matter. Has it not occurred to you, my dear, that this entire experience of ours since that beastly storm is rather--er--compromising?”
”You--you dare say such a thing! I'll go this instant and tell Mr.
Blake! I'll--”
”Begging your pardon, madam,--but are you prepared to marry that barbarous clodhopper?”
”Marry? What do you mean, sir?”
”Precisely that. It is a question of marriage, if you'll pardon me.
And, you see, I flatter myself, that when it comes to the point, it will not be Blake, but myself--”
”Ah, indeed! And if I should prefer neither of you?”
”Begging your pardon,--I fancy you will honor me with your hand, my dear. For one thing, you admit that I am a gentleman.”
”Oh, indeed!”
”One moment, please! I am trying to intimate to you, as delicately as possible, how--er--embarra.s.sing you would find it to have these little occurrences--above all, to-day's--noised abroad to the vulgar crowd, or even among your friends--”
”What do you mean? What do you want?” cried the girl, staring at him with a deepening fear in her bewildered eyes.
”Believe me, my dear, it grieves me to so perturb you; but--er--love must have its way, you know.”
”You forget. There is Mr. Blake.”
”Ah, to be sure! But really now, you would not ask, or even permit him to murder me; and one is not legally bound, you know, to observe promises--a pledge of silence, for example--when extorted under duress, under violence, you know.”
Miss Leslie looked the Englishman up and down, her brown eyes sparkling with quick-returning anger. He met her scorn with a smile of smug complacency.
”Cad!” she cried, and turning her back upon him, she set out across the plain after Blake.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE EAVESDROPPER CAUGHT
Even had it not been for her doubts of Blake, the girl's modesty would have caused her to think twice before repeating to him the Englishman's insulting proposal. While she yet hesitated and delayed, Winthrope came down with a second attack of fever. Blake, who until then had held himself sullenly apart from him as well as from Miss Leslie, at once softened to a gentler, or, at least, to a more considerate mood. Though his speech and bearing continued morose, he took upon himself all the duties of night nurse, besides working and foraging several hours each day.
Much to Miss Leslie's surprise, she found herself tending the invalid through the daytime almost as though nothing had happened. But everything about this wild and perilous life was so strange and unnatural to her that she found herself accepting the most unconventional relations as a regular consequence of the situation. She was feverishly eager for anything that might occupy her mind; for she felt that to brood over the future might mean madness. The mere thought of the possibilities was far too terrifying to be calmly dwelt upon. Though slight, there had been some little comfort in the belief that she could rely on Winthrope.
But now she was left alone with her doubt and dread. Even if she had nothing to fear from Blake, there were all the savage dangers of the coast, and behind those, far worse, the fever.
Meantime Blake went about his share of the camp work, gruff and silent, but with the usual concrete results. He brought load after load of fresh cocoanuts, and took great pains to hunt out the deliciously flavored eggs of the frigate birds to tempt Winthrope's failing appet.i.te.
When Miss Leslie suggested that beef juice would be much better for the invalid than broth, he went out immediately in search of a gum-bearing tree, and that night, after heating a small quant.i.ty of gum in the cigarette case with the adder poison, he spent hours replacing his arrow-heads with small barbed tips that could be loosened from their sockets by a slight pull.