He went to the saloon stairs and whistled, and a Negro boy appeared with a tray of chocolate. Nella took it, and, without the slightest hesitation, threw it overboard. Mr Jackson walked away a few steps and then returned.
'You have spirit,' he said, 'and I admire spirit. It is a rare quality.'
She made no reply. 'Why did you mix yourself up in my affairs at all?' he went on. Again she made no reply, but the question set her thinking: why had she mixed herself up in this mysterious business? It was quite at variance with the usual methods of her gay and butterfly existence to meddle at all with serious things.
Had she acted merely from a desire to see justice done and wickedness punished? Or was it the desire of adventure? Or was it, perhaps, the desire to be of service to His Serene Highness Prince Aribert? 'It is no fault of mine that you are in this fix,' Jules continued. 'I didn't bring you into it. You brought yourself into it.
You and your father - you have been moving along at a pace which is rather too rapid.'
'That remains to be seen,' she put in coldly.
'It does,' he admitted. 'And I repeat that I can't help admiring you -that is, when you aren't interfering with my private affairs. That is a proceeding which I have never tolerated from anyone - not even from a millionaire, nor even from a beautiful woman.' He bowed. 'Iwill tell you what I propose to do. I propose to escort you to a place of safety, and to keep you there till my operations are concluded, and the possibility of interference entirely removed.
You spoke just now of murder. What a crude notion that was of yours! It is only the amateur who practises murder - '
'What about Reginald Dimmock?' she interjected quickly.
He paused gravely.
'Reginald Dimmock,' he repeated. 'I had imagined his was a case of heart disease. Let me send you up some more chocolate. I'm sure you're hungry.'
'I will starve before I touch your food,' she said.
'Gallant creature!' he murmured, and his eyes roved over her face.
Her superb, supercilious beauty overcame him. 'Ah!' he said, 'what a wife you would make!' He approached nearer to her. 'You and I, Miss Racksole, your beauty and wealth and my brains - we could conquer the world. Few men are worthy of you, but I am one of the few. Listen! You might do worse. Marry me. I am a great man; Ishall be greater. I adore you. Marry me, and I will save your life.
All shall be well. I will begin again. The past shall be as though there had been no past.'
'This is somewhat sudden - Jules,' she said with biting contempt.
'Did you expect me to be conventional?' he retorted. 'I love you.'
'Granted,' she said, for the sake of the argument. 'Then what will occur to your present wife?'
'My present wife?'
'Yes, Miss Spencer, as she is called.'
'She told you I was her husband?'
'Incidentally she did.'
'She isn't.'
'Perhaps she isn't. But, nevertheless, I think I won't marry you.'
Nella stood like a statue of scorn before him.
He went still nearer to her. 'Give me a kiss, then; one kiss - I won't ask for more; one kiss from those lips, and you shall go free. Men have ruined themselves for a kiss. I will.'
'Coward!' she ejaculated.
'Coward!' he repeated. 'Coward, am I? Then I'll be a coward, and you shall kiss me whether you will or not.'
He put a hand on her shoulder. As she shrank back from his lustrous eyes, with an involuntary scream, a figure sprang out of the dinghy a few feet away. With a single blow, neatly directed to Mr Jackson's ear, Mr Jackson was stretched senseless on the deck.
Prince Aribert of Posen stood over him with a revolver. It was probably the greatest surprise of Mr Jackson's whole life.
'Don't be alarmed,' said the Prince to Nella, 'my being here is the simplest thing in the world, and I will explain it as soon as I have finished with this fellow.'
Nella could think of nothing to say, but she noticed the revolver in the Prince's hand.
'Why,' she remarked, 'that's my revolver.'
'It is,' he said, 'and I will explain that, too.'
The man at the wheel gave no heed whatever to the scene.
