"I have my pay," he said with dignity.
"I see," said the Marquis again. "Mademoiselle de Villebois is a lady of fortune. She will have a very considerable dot — dowry, I think you call it. Did that influence you in reaching this rather surprising decision?"
"Good God!" said Peabody, completely thrown out of his stride this time. The idea had never occurred to him for a moment, and his face showed it. His astonishment was so genuine that it could hardly fail to make a favorable impression upon the Marquis — the latter's experiences might have accustomed him to American unconventionality, but they had not been able to eradicate the Frenchman's natural tendency to look upon matrimony as an occasion for financial bargaining.
"It is usual," said the Marquis, "when a marriage is being arranged, for the prospective bridegroom to match, franc for franc, his bride's fortune, in the matter of settlements. You apparently had no intention of doing that?"
"No," said Peabody. "I didn't know that Mademoiselle de Villebois had any money. I never thought about it, and I don't want it."
He was conscious that he had made a frightful hash of the pronunciation of Anne's name, and it did not improve his temper, which was steadily rising.
"Josiah," said Anne, quietly. As far as Peabody knew, that was the first time Anne had ever spoken his name. It quieted him a good deal, and he made himself speak reasonably.
"All Anne and I want to do," he said, "is to get married. In my country we do not think about money in that connection. And one free man is as good as another."
The Marquis suddenly became confidential.
"Do you know," he said, "it is my impression that just as many unsuccessful marriages result from the one system as from the other."
Peabody grinned.
"You don't think our marriage is going to be unsuccessful, Father?" asked Anne.
"How long have you known each other?" continued the Marquis. "You've seen each other twice — "
"Three times, sir," said Peabody deferentially.
"Three times, then — " said the Marquis, but he had been just sufficiently checked in the full flow of his argument to cause him to stumble, and his final words were a little lame. "It's just madness, madness."
The glass door opened to admit the Countess with Davenant, and the Marquis swung round on his sister.
"These two ridiculous people want to get married, Sophie," he said.
"We are going to get married tomorrow, Aunt Sophie," said Anne.
The Countess expressed her surprise in French; Davenant's face bore such a comic expression, of mixed astonishment and envy at this American who had carried off a prize in this fashion, that Peabody was immensely comforted. He even began to enjoy himself. But Davenant was of stern stuff, and not for long would he ever allow himself to be discountenanced. If the right thing was there to be said, he was going to say it.
"I wish you joy, Mamselle," he said. "Sir, my heartiest good wishes and congratulations."
"Thank you, sir," said Peabody.
"But — " began the Marquis.
"You are very kind, Sir Hubert," said Anne, neatly interrupting him, and then she turned to her aunt with a torrent of French. The Countess's face softened, and she came towards her niece — Peabody had a clairvoyant moment, when telepathically he was aware of the sentimental appeal an imminent marriage has for any woman. Probably aunt and niece were closer together spiritually than ever before.
"But — " said the Marquis again.
"Father," said Anne, turning from her aunt for a moment, "I'm sure the gentlemen are thirsty. Won't you pull the bell?"
Not even his disapproval of his daughter's marriage could weigh in the scale against a lifetime of training in hospitality, and the Marquis broke off his speech to walk across to the bell-pull.
"Now listen to me — " he began as he returned.
"The white gown will do if we use a veil," Anne was saying to her aunt, and Peabody was careful to pay the strictest attention to her, so that the Marquis had only Davenant to whom he could address his remarks, which naturally died away in undignified manner.
"Anne!" exclaimed the Marquis, exasperated. "Don't — "
The entrance of the butler was the culminating interruption. The Marquis swung round upon him, and was immediately engulfed in orders to him. He actually never succeeded in giving any voice to his objections to the marriage.
Chapter XVI
PEABODY came back on board the Delaware just at sunset. He looked round the familiar decks, and at the familiar faces, out at the red sun sinking in the blue Caribbean, and aloft to where the men were just finishing their work for the day. It was all so real, so ordinary, that for a moment he felt that the situation he had left behind at the Governor's house was an unreal one. It called for all his common sense to act normally in a world where at one moment he could have Anne's soft lips against his own, and at the next could be putting the Delaware into shape for her last fight.
"Mr. Hubbard," he said, as his first lieutenant lifted his hat, "we'll heave her over tomorrow. Run the even-numbered starboard-side guns over to larboard — that ought to be enough. You'll double-breech the others, of course. That'll bring her over by a couple of strokes and you can get at those shot-holes."
"Aye aye, sir," said Hubbard.
"I am going to get married tomorrow, Mr. Hubbard," went on Peabody.
"I didn't understand you, sir?"
Peabody repeated his words, but even so they did not convince Hubbard for a minute or two. "Who is the lady, sir?" asked Hubbard, swallowing, and eyeing Peabody with some anxiety.
"Mamselle Anne de Villebois," said Peabody, and then he grinned. "And the sooner she's Mrs. Peabody, so that we don't have to try to say that name any more, the better."
Hubbard's swarthy saturnine face grinned in response as the little human touch about the joke thawed him completely.
"She's a lovely lady, sir," he said. "I wish you joy, sir, and happiness, and prosperity."
"Thank you, Mr. Hubbard. Now what about that second-best suit of sails? What did the Committee of Inquiry decide about them?"
There was a great deal to be done — there never was any ship yet in which a great deal did not have to be done, even when there was not the additional prospect of having to fight for her life within the week. Peabody went round the ship with his heads of department, his first lieutenant and his carpenter, his boatswain and his cooper and his purser and his gunner. The ship was noisy with the return at sunset of the tipsy liberty men, whose last stragglers had been swept up from the grogshops and the brothels by Atwell and a small party, but Peabody like a sensible man turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the strange sights and sounds around him. His petty officers were the pick of all America, who could be relied upon not to incite trouble and to suppress it as soon as it showed; he paid no attention to the drunken figures which were being lashed into their hammocks like giant cocoons that could hurt neither themselves nor anyone else.
"Washington was far more trouble than any drunken sailor; Peabody snapped the news at him as sternly and as unemotionally as he knew how, but that did not prevent the talkative Negro from indulging in a long orgy of sentiment. That pose of old family retainer was maddening to Peabody; so long had he been solitary, so long dependent on his own sole exertions that he resented bitterly Washington's continual attempt to establish himself in his intimacy; equally irritating was Washington's bland self-deception as he deliberately tried to make a god out of his master. Washington was uncomfortable without someone to worship, and paid small attention to Peabody's discomfort at being worshiped.