snarl at the end of his tone.
Kerry sobered and looked at him gravely.
“I don’t understand you, Professor Dawson; what is it you are trying to say to me?”
She was now yet quite eighteen, but she suddenly felt ages old. She sensed vaguely that a battle was ahead, and she must fight single-handed. There was no one living to help her.
“I want to talk to you about the thing that interests you most in all the world!” he said eagerly. “You know what it is, but you are afraid to trust me. But you needn’t be. I am your friend, and I was your father’s friend. I stand ready to help you in every way possible. And Miss Kavanaugh, I want you to know that of all your father’s friends I know no one better fitted to help you than I am because of my deep interest for years in the things that your father was studying.”
He paused and pierced Kerry with that cunning beady black gaze of his.
“Yes?” said Kerry coolly, almost choking over the word in her dry little frightened throat, but voicing the syllable with a self-possession worthy of a woman of the world. She looked him back with a cool, inscrutable gaze in her purply-blue eyes that had somehow turned a deep amber, the friendliness all shut out of them.
“Do you believe that I may help you in your great work?”
“What work is that?” asked Kerry sweetly, feeling herself growing more and more angry now. Why, this man was almost impertinent! He was almost in a class with Sam Morgan! Was there any abominable animal or insect to which she might compare him that would rank even lower than a louse?
“I mean the great work on which you are now engaged!” he announced with a meaningful look, and lowering his voice he asked huskily, “Your father’s great book!”
He studied her face a moment and then went on.
“I can understand how you must be hampered, not being a scientist yourself. There will be things of course that should be altered to bring them up to the times. Your father was an older man and quite conservative. And I, knowing your father’s general trend, would be able to make suggestions to you without in the least changing his style—”
But Kerry had suddenly risen, and as she stood for an instant looking down upon the small, sharp little man she seemed to have grown taller by several inches, and to have acquired a new poise. She smiled quite frigidly as a queen might have done to a presuming courtier, and answered him with steady voice in which the rising anger was quite held in abeyance.
“Mr.—Professor—Dawson, you are making a great mistake! You seem to be under the impression that I am trying to finish or rewrite or reconstruct some work of my father’s for publication. That is not the case. Whatever my father wrote was entirely finished and complete and contracted for with his publisher before he died. But if it had not been, I certainly should never allow
any
man, whether he thought he was a scientist or not, whether he professed to be a friend or a foe, to add to or reconstruct or delete a single word from anything my father had ever written. Certainly not you, Professor Dawson. Now, if you will excuse me, I have something else to do.”
And with her red-gold head held high she marched away from the place and stumbled down the companionway straight into the arms of a man who was coming up.
Graham McNair caught her as she would have fallen, and she looked up and gave a little sob of a laugh as she recovered herself, but he saw that there were tears on her cheeks.
“Can—I do anything for you?” he asked, a little at a loss to know whether to laugh it off or go deeper into facts.
“No thank you—or, yes—there is. There’s a man out there on the deck—I wish you’d throw him overboard for me please. Not quite drown him, perhaps—but—just give him a
good scare!”
Her face was dimpling with smiles, but he could see that the tears were not far away from the blue eyes lifted so bravely. The red-gold hair caught the
Kerry sobered and looked at him gravely.
“I don’t understand you, Professor Dawson; what is it you are trying to say to me?”
She was now yet quite eighteen, but she suddenly felt ages old. She sensed vaguely that a battle was ahead, and she must fight single-handed. There was no one living to help her.
“I want to talk to you about the thing that interests you most in all the world!” he said eagerly. “You know what it is, but you are afraid to trust me. But you needn’t be. I am your friend, and I was your father’s friend. I stand ready to help you in every way possible. And Miss Kavanaugh, I want you to know that of all your father’s friends I know no one better fitted to help you than I am because of my deep interest for years in the things that your father was studying.”
He paused and pierced Kerry with that cunning beady black gaze of his.
“Yes?” said Kerry coolly, almost choking over the word in her dry little frightened throat, but voicing the syllable with a self-possession worthy of a woman of the world. She looked him back with a cool, inscrutable gaze in her purply-blue eyes that had somehow turned a deep amber, the friendliness all shut out of them.
“Do you believe that I may help you in your great work?”
“What work is that?” asked Kerry sweetly, feeling herself growing more and more angry now. Why, this man was almost impertinent! He was almost in a class with Sam Morgan! Was there any abominable animal or insect to which she might compare him that would rank even lower than a louse?
“I mean the great work on which you are now engaged!” he announced with a meaningful look, and lowering his voice he asked huskily, “Your father’s great book!”
He studied her face a moment and then went on.
“I can understand how you must be hampered, not being a scientist yourself. There will be things of course that should be altered to bring them up to the times. Your father was an older man and quite conservative. And I, knowing your father’s general trend, would be able to make suggestions to you without in the least changing his style—”
But Kerry had suddenly risen, and as she stood for an instant looking down upon the small, sharp little man she seemed to have grown taller by several inches, and to have acquired a new poise. She smiled quite frigidly as a queen might have done to a presuming courtier, and answered him with steady voice in which the rising anger was quite held in abeyance.
“Mr.—Professor—Dawson, you are making a great mistake! You seem to be under the impression that I am trying to finish or rewrite or reconstruct some work of my father’s for publication. That is not the case. Whatever my father wrote was entirely finished and complete and contracted for with his publisher before he died. But if it had not been, I certainly should never allow
any
man, whether he thought he was a scientist or not, whether he professed to be a friend or a foe, to add to or reconstruct or delete a single word from anything my father had ever written. Certainly not you, Professor Dawson. Now, if you will excuse me, I have something else to do.”
And with her red-gold head held high she marched away from the place and stumbled down the companionway straight into the arms of a man who was coming up.
Graham McNair caught her as she would have fallen, and she looked up and gave a little sob of a laugh as she recovered herself, but he saw that there were tears on her cheeks.
“Can—I do anything for you?” he asked, a little at a loss to know whether to laugh it off or go deeper into facts.
“No thank you—or, yes—there is. There’s a man out there on the deck—I wish you’d throw him overboard for me please. Not quite drown him, perhaps—but—just give him a
good scare!”
Her face was dimpling with smiles, but he could see that the tears were not far away from the blue eyes lifted so bravely. The red-gold hair caught the
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