Cunningham relaxed a little more in his chair, his eyes still closed.
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Cleigh.
"I let you abduct me. I thought, maybe, if I were near you for a little I
might bring you two together."
"Well, now!" said Cleigh, falling into the old New England vernacular
which was his birthright. "I brought you on board merely to lure him after
you. I wanted you both on board so I could observe you. I intended to
carry you both off on a cruise. I watched you from the door that night
while you two were dining. I saw by his face and his gestures that he
would follow you anywhere."
"But I--I am only a professional nurse. I'm nobody! I haven't anything!"
"Good Lord, will you listen to that?" cried the pirate, with a touch of
his old banter. "Nobody and nothing?"
Neither Jane nor Cleigh apparently heard this interpolation.
"Why did you maltreat him?"
"Otherwise he would have thought I was offering my hand, that I had
weakened."
"And you expected him to fall on your shoulder and ask your pardon after
that? Mr. Cleigh, for a man of your intellectual attainments, your stand
is the biggest piece of stupidity I ever heard of! How in the world was he
to know what your thoughts were?"
"I was giving him his chance," declared Cleigh, stubbornly.
"A yacht? It's a madhouse," gibed Cunningham. "And this is a convention of
fools!"
"How do you want me to act?" asked Cleigh, surrendering absolutely.
"When he comes to, take his hand. You don't have to say anything else."
"All right."
From Dennison's lips came a deep, long sigh. Jane leaned over.
"Denny?" she whispered.
The lids of Dennison's eyes rolled back heavily.
"Jane--all right?" he asked, quickly.
"Yes. How do you feel?"
He reached out a hand whence her voice came. She met the hand with hers,
and that seemed to be all he wanted just then.
"You'd better get your bathrobe, Mr. Cleigh," she suggested.
Cleigh became conscious for the first time of the condition of his pyjama
jacket. It hung upon his torso in mere ribbons. He became conscious also
of the fact that his body ached variously and substantially.
"Thirty-odd years since I was in a racket like this. I'm getting along."
"And on the way," put in Cunningham, "you might call Cleve. I'd feel
better--stretched out."