«It is Monsieur Jeremy!» she cried, and added, quite needlessly, thought Mr. Pitt: «I was not expecting you.»
Jeremy took the hand she proffered and bore it to his lips, more or less mechanically, whilst mumbling a greeting in his indifferent French. Followed an exchange of commonplaces, and then an awkward pause, at the end of which said Tondeur with a scowl:
«When a lady tells me that I am unexpected, I understand her to mean that I am inopportune.»
«No doubt a common experience in your life.» Captain Tondeur smiled. Your practised, duellist is always self–possessed.
«At least not a subject for pertness. It is not always wise to be pert. The moment's glitter may lead to painful instruction.»
Lucienne intervened. She was a little breathless. Her eyes were scared.
«But what is this? What are you saying? You are wrong, Monsieur le Capitaine, to assume Monsieur Jeremy inopportune. Monsieur Jeremy is my friend, and my friends are never inopportune.»
«Not perhaps to you, Mademoiselle. But to other friends of yours they can be monstrously so.»
«Again you are mistaken.» Her manner was frigid. «He is no friend of mine to whom other friends of mine are unwelcome in my presence.»
The Captain bit his lip, and Jeremy took a fragment of comfort, for all that he still hotly remembered that arm about the waist of the woman whose lips he had kissed last night and also Captain Blood's condemnation of her.
The elements of a very pretty quarrel were shattered by the sudden appearance of Monsieur d'Ogeron and Monsieur de Mercceur. Both were out of breath as if they had been hurrying. They checked, however, and seemed relieved when they saw who was present. It was as if Monsieur d'Ogeron found not quite what he had expected, and relief upon the safety for Lucienne which is believed to reside in numbers. Their advent put an end to acrimony, and perhaps because he was in the humour for little else, Captain Tondeur presently took his leave. A smile of disquieting significance accompanied his parting words to Jeremy.
«I shall look forward, monsieur, to an early opportunity of continuing our interesting discussion.» Anon, when Jeremy, too, would have departed, Monsieur d'Ogeron detained him. «Remain yet a moment, Monsieur Pitt.»
He took the young man by the arm in a friendly manner and drew him away from Monsieur de Mercceur and Lucienne. They moved up the avenue and entered a tunnel fashioned of over–arching orange trees imported from Europe; a cool place this where the ripe fruit glowed like lamps against the dusky green.
«I did not like the parting words of Captain Tondeur, nor yet his smile. That is a very dangerous man. You would be wise to beware of him.»
Jeremy bridled a little. «Do you suppose I fear him?»
«I suppose you would be prudent to do so. A very dangerous man. A canaille. He comes here too much.»
«Regarding him as you do, why do you permit it?»
Monsieur d'Ogeron made a grimace. «Regarding him as I do, I cannot do otherwise.»
«You are afraid of him?»
«I confess it. Oh, not for myself, Monsieur Pitt. But there is Lucienne. He pays his court to her.»
Jeremy quivered with fury. «Could you not forbid him your house?»
«Of course.» Monsieur d'Ogeron smiled crookedly. «I did something of the kind once before, in the case of Levasseur. You know the story.»
«Oh, but…Oh, but…» Jeremy encountered a difficulty, but finally surmounted it. «Mademoiselle Madeleine was so misguided as to lend herself to the scheme of Levasseur. You do not dream that Mademoiselle Lucienne —»
«Why should I not dream it? This Tondeur canaille though he be, is not without attraction, and he has over Levasseur the advantage that he was once a gentleman and can still display the manners of one when it suits him. An inexperienced child like Lucienne is easily allured by your bold, enterprising wooer.»
Mr. Pitt was a little sick at heart and bewildered. «Yet what good can temporising do? Sooner or later you will have to reject him. And then…What then?»
«It is what I ask myself,» said Monsieur d'Ogeron almost lugubriously. «Yet an evil that is postponed may ultimately be removed by chance.» And then, suddenly, his manner changed. «Oh, but your pardon, my dear Mr. Pitt. Our talk is taking a turn very far from what I intended. A father's anxiety! I meant to do no more than utter a warning, and I beg that you will heed it.»
Mr. Pitt thought he understood. What was in Monsieur d'Ogeron's mind was that Tondeur scented a rival in Jeremy and that such a man would take prompt means to eliminate a rival.
«I am obliged to you, Monsieur d'Ogeron. I can take care of myself.»
«I trust so. Sincerely I trust so.» And on that they parted.
Jeremy went back to dine on board the Arabella, and after dinner, pacing the poop with Blood, he told him what had passed.
Captain Blood was thoughtful. «There is cause enough to warn you. Though why the Governor should be troubling to do so is just a trifle odd. I'll pay him a visit, so I will. I may be able to help him, though I don't yet see how. Meanwhile, Jerry, if ye're prudent, yell be keeping the ship. Devil a doubt but Tondeur will be looking for you.»
«And I am to avoid him, am I?» snorted Jeremy.
«If ye're wise.»
«If I'm a coward.»
«Now isn't a live coward better than a dead fool, which is what ye'll be if ye come to grips with Master Tondeur? Ye'll not be forgetting the man's a fencing–master; whilst you…Pshaw! It would be just murder, so it would. And where's the glory of suffering that?»
Pitt knew it in his heart and yet would not admit the humiliating knowledge. Therefore, neglecting Blood's advice, he went ashore on the morrow, and was sitting with Hagthorpe and Wolverstone in the tavern of the King of France when Tondeur found him.
It was in the neighbourhood of noon, and the common–room was thronged with buccaneers, a few ordinary seamen from the Cygne, beachcombers and the land–sharks of both sexes who prey upon seafaring men, and particularly upon buccaneers, who are ever prodigal of their broad pieces of eight. The air of the ill–lighted place was heavy with the reek of rum, tobacco, spun–yarn and humanity.
Tondeur came forward leisurely, his left hand resting on his hilt, exchanging nods and bringing up at last before Jeremy's table.
«You permit?» quoth he, and without waiting for an answer, he drew up a stool and sat down. «I am fortunate so soon to be able to resume the little discussion that yesterday was interrupted.»
Jeremy, understanding perfectly what was coming, stared at him uneasily. His two companions, understanding nothing, stared with him.
«We discussed inopportuneness, I think, and your sluggishness in perceiving that your presence was not required.»
Jeremy leaned forward. «What we discussed is no matter. You are here, I think, to pick a quarrel with me.»
«I?» Captain Tondeur stared and frowned. «Why should you suppose that? You do me no harm. It is not in your power to do me harm. Yo are not even in my way. If you were, I should crack you like a flea.» He laughed contemptuously, offensively, and by that laugh flung Jeremy, as he intended, into a passion.
«I am no flea for your cracking.»
«Are you not?» Tondeur got up. «Then be careful not to pester me again, or you may find yourself under my thumbnail. You have your warning.» He spoke loudly, so that all might hear him, and his tone brought a hush upon the crowded room.
He was turning away contemptuously when Jeremy's answer arrested him.
«You insolent dog!»
Captain Tondeur checked. He raised his brows. A snarling smile lifted an end of his little moustache. And meanwhile the burly Wolverstone, still understanding nothing, sought instinctively to restrain Jeremy, who had also risen.
«Dog?» said the Captain slowly. «Dog, eh? It is apt enough. The dog and the flea. All the same, I do not like dog. You will be so good as to retract' dog. You will retract it at once. I am not a patient man, Monsieur Pitt.»