“Can’t anything be done?” she ventured gently.  “Have you handled him?  I mean—­Oh, I’m sure he’s reasonable.  Can’t the offer be made—­more suitable?  More—?”

Peterman’s eyes suddenly hardened.

“What do you mean?  I haven’t handled him right?  I’ve blundered?  I—­” He laughed without any mirth.  “See here, Nancy, my dear, you’re a bright girl, but don’t hand me your worry for this darn fool.  You’re kind of tender-hearted.  You guess it’s a pretty tough thing to see a good-looker boy go down in a big commercial fight.  That’s because you’re a woman.  This sort of thing’s part of business.  It’s harsher, more ruthless than even war on the battlefield with guns, and bombs, and stinking gas.  We’re going to fight this thing just that way.  There’s no mercy for Mr. Bull Sternford.  He’ll get all I can hand him just the way I know best how to hand it.  And the tougher I can make it the better it’ll please me.  See?  Now you just run right along and see to those things that are going to make you big in the Skandinavia, and don’t give a thought for the feller who’s handed me stuff I don’t stand for in any man.  There’s liable to be big work for you in this fight, and I’d say you’ll make as good in fight as in peace.  You’ve got my goodwill anyway, my dear, just for all it’s worth.  That’s all.”

* * * * *

The door had closed behind the girl.  Elas Peterman was on his feet pacing the thickly carpeted floor.  There was no longer any attempt at disguise.  A surge of jealous fury was raging through his hot heart and drove him mercilessly.

The picture of Nancy, radiantly beautiful, seated at dinner with Bull Sternford had lit a fire of bitter hatred in his Teutonic heart.  So he paced the room and permitted the fierce tide to flood the channels of sanity and set them awash with the ready evil of his impulse.

From the first moment of the girl’s story of her successful effort with this man, Sternford, this vaunting rival, Peterman had been bitterly stirred.  The man’s change of plans at her bidding he had understood on the instant.  The man from Labrador had not changed his plans at the bidding of the Skandinavia.  It was the girl who had induced him.  It was she who had attracted him.  Then the boat trip, and the girl’s confession of his having, perhaps, saved her life.  What had preceded that incident?  What had followed it?  And when Elas Peterman asked himself such questions it was simple for him to find the answer.  He had seen Sternford, and had judged the position.  He knew what would have happened had he been in this man’s place.  Sternford wasn’t the man to throw away such chances, either.  He had fallen for the girl, and she doubtless had—­The picture he had witnessed at the Chateau had left him without any doubt.  The driving up together from the docks, the telephone.  Sternford had taken her to her apartment.  Oh, it was all as clear as daylight.  Then the girl’s pity for the man who was to feel the weight of the Skandinavia’s wrathful might.  She had said he was reasonable.  She had hinted that he, Peterman, had blundered.  There was only one reasonable interpretation to the position.  And it did not leave him guessing for one single moment.