der Deolda's enchantment. As for
me, I adored her; she had a look that always disarmed me. She would sit
brooding with a look I had come to know as the "Deolda look." Tears
would come to her eyes and slide down her face.

"Deolda," I would plead, "what are you crying about?"

"Life," she answered.

But I knew that she was crying because Johnny Deutra was only a boy.
Then she would change into a mood of wild gayety, whip the shawl around
her, and dance for me, looking a thousand times more beautiful than
anyone I had ever seen. And then she would shove me out of the room,
leaving me feeling as though I had witnessed some strange rite at once
beautiful and unholy.

She'd sit mocking Conboy, but he'd only smile. She'd go off with her
other love and my aunt powerless to stop her. As for Johnny Deutra, he
was so in love that all he saw was Deolda. I don't believe he ever
thought that she was in earnest about old Conboy.

So things stood when one day Capt. Mark Hammar came driving up with
Conboy to take Deolda out. Mark was his real name, but Nick was what
they called him, after the "Old Nick," for he was a devil if there ever
was one, a big, rollicking devil--that is, outwardly. But gossips said
no crueller man ever drove a crew for the third summer into the Northern
Seas. I didn't like the way he looked at Deolda from the first, with his
narrowed eyes and his smiling mouth. My aunt didn't like the way she
signaled back to him. We watched them go, my aunt saying

"No good'll come of that!" And no good did.

All three of them came back excited and laughing. Old Conboy, tall as
Mark Hammar, wide-shouldered, shambling like a bear, but a fine figure
of an old fellow for all that; Mark Hammar, heavy and splendid in his
sinister fashion; and between them Deolda with her big, red mouth and
her sallow skin and her eyes burning as they did when she was excited.

"I'm saying to Deolda here," said Captain Hammar, coming up to my aunt,
"that I'll make a better runnin' mate than Conboy." He drew her up to
him. There was something alike about them; the same devil flamed out of
the eyes of both of them. Their glances met like forked lightning. "I've
got a lot more money than him, too," said Hammar, jerking his thumb
toward Conboy. He roused the devil in Deolda.

"You may have more money," said she, "but you'll live longer! And I want
to be a rich widow!"

"Stop your joking," my aunt said, sharply. "It don't sound nice."

"Joki