"You may hate me, despise me, Helena. Let it be so. But you shall not
ignore me, as you have these three years."
"It was your fault; your wish--as well as my wish. We agreed to that.
Why bring it up again? When the news came that you had quit your
profession, and just at the time you had lost all your father's
fortune and your own, had turned your back and run away, when you
should have stayed and fought--well, do you think a girl cares for
that sort of man? No. A man must do something in this world. He
mustn't quit. He's got to fight."
"Not even if he has nothing to work for?"
"No, not even then. There are plenty of girls in the world----"
"One."
--"And a man mustn't throw away his life for any one woman. That isn't
right. He has his work to do, his place to make and hold. That's what
a woman wants in a man. But you didn't. Now, you come and say we must
forget all the years of off-and-on, all the time we--we--wasted, don't
you know? And because I am, for a little while, in your hands, you
talk to me in a way of which you ought to be ashamed. You threaten me,
a woman. You even almost compromise me. This will make talk. You speak
to me as though, indeed, you were a buccaneer, and I, indeed, in your
power absolutely. If I did not know you----"
"You do not. Forget the man you knew. I am not he."
She spread out her hands mockingly, and yet more I felt my anger rise.
"I am another man. I am my father, and his great grandfather, and all
his ancestors, pirates all. I know what I covet, and by the Lord!
nothing shall stop me, least of all the law. I shall take my own where
I find it."
"And now listen!" I concluded. "I am master on this ship, no matter
how I got it. Late poor, as you say, I shall be richer soon, for I
shall take, law or no law, consent or no consent, what I want, what I
will have. And that is you!
"Each day, at eleven, Helena," I concluded, "I shall meet you on the
after deck, and shall try to be kind, try to be courteous----"
"Why, Harry----"
"Try to be calm, too. I want to give you time to think. And I, too,
must think. For a time, I wondered what was right, in case you had
really pledged yourself to another man."
"Suppose I had?" she asked, sphinx-like.
"I will try to discover that. Not that it would make any difference in
my plans."
"You would take what was another's?" She still gazed at me,
sphinx-like.