Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/81

Rh She took the key from his table, and crossed the hall to the door. The lock was large and clumsy, but she turned the key by putting both hands to it. Then, swinging open the door, she looked inside. The door opened into an apartment crowded with a collection of sundry articles of value: bales of silk from Italy, Genoa laces, Spanish silver-inlaid weapons, Chinese porcelain, bronzes from Japan, gold and silver ornaments, bracelets, brooches, watches, inlaid mother-of-pearl cabinets—an amazing congeries of valuables heaped together. "Well, now!" shouted Cruel Coppinger. "What say you to the gay things there? Choose—take what you will. I care not for them one rush. What do you most admire, most covet? Put out both hands and take—take all you would have, fill your lap, carry off all you can. It is yours." Judith drew hastily back and relocked the door.

"What have you taken?" "Nothing."

"Nothing? Take what you will; I give it freely." "I cannot take anything, though I thank you, Captain Coppinger, for your kind and generous offer." "You will accept nothing?"

She shook her head.

"That is like you. You do it to anger me. As you throw hard words at me—coward, wrecker, robber—and as you dash broken glass, buttons, buckles, in my face, so do you throw back my offers." "It is not through ingratitude——" "I care not through what it is! You seek to anger, and not to please me. Why will you take nothing? There are beautiful things there to charm a woman." "I am not a woman; I am a little girl."

"Why do you refuse me?"

"For one thing, because I want none of the things there, beautiful and costly though they be." "And for the other thing——?" "For the other thing—excuse my plain speaking—I do not think they have been honestly got." "By heavens!" shouted Coppinger. "There you attack and stab at me again. I like your plainness of speech. You do not spare me. I would not have you false and double like old Dunes." "Oh, Captain Coppinger! I give you thanks from the