#nothingmustbe

|     “ I wish he’d never met her. ”

“ i’ve thought about that a lot. he would’ve married daisy. ” his voice had an oddly hollow quality about it, and he sounded a bit bitter.

he didn’t seem to be talking so much now as thinking aloud.

“ that’s how it always should’ve gone, y’know? jeremy marrying daisy. ”

he licked his lips. his eyes had squeezed down to slits, and they looked very catlike in the candlelight.

“ then we could’ve got married. you and i could’ve got married, i mean. ”

he stopped here. he appeared to be listening to something.

“ b’lieve that’s mary. have you met her yet? ”

he shot a look at her——at clowance, that was.

|     “ I just meant he is not always so loquacious. ”

“ hm? your handsome sailor lad, y’mean? ”

he sat across from her with his legs stretched out at odd angles.

“ well, you mustn’t take this in the wrong way, m’dear, but——i hadn’t thought so. ”

his eyebrows vaulted upwards, and he rubbed at his bad one with the toe of the boot opposite it.

“ y’know, i b’lieve i talked circles around him the first time i met him. ”

he screwed his eyes up, as if in some effort of recollection——meanwhile, he gave his jaw a bit of a lazy scratch.

“ of course——i had thought afterwards that he mightn’t have been partial to my choice of topics, but now i’m thinking it may be me he’s not partial to. ”

looking back on it, he couldn’t remember what his choice of topics had been, but——there had been a pretty barmaid, he fancied.

in any case, the prospect didn’t appear to trouble him too terribly much, though——he did pause. then——after a moment, he leveled a look at her.

one which was distinctly unprincipled.

“ perhaps i should’ve waited to call upon you until he was safely back on the high seas, eh? ”

he winked at her. it was a humorous sort of a gesture, it seemed, but——not altogether lacking in sincerity.

“Well, damn me------I shall do my best not to disappoint you.” He sat up in his chair a little, clearing his throat, making efforts to put on some semblance of a serious face.