"We have our To-day," she murmured. "Golden hours till the moon comes
up--and then perhaps a few silver ones! I don't care what Arthur
guesses. My father is too busy talking money with those men to guess.
I'm going to be with you all I can. I can arrange it. I'm studying
navigation."
She snuggled against the rail, luxuriating in the sunshine.
"Who are you?" she asked, bluntly.
That question, coming after the pledging of their affection, astonished
him like the loom of a ledge in mid-channel.
"It's enough for me that you are just as you are, boy! But you're not a
prince in disguise, are you?"
"I'm only a Yankee sailor," he told her. "But if you won't think that
I'm trying to trade on what my folks have been before me, I'll say that
my grandfather was Gamaliel Mayo of Mayoport."
"That sounds good, but I never heard of him. With all my philosophy, I'm
a poor student of history, sweetheart." Her tone and the name she gave
him took the sting out of her confession.
"I don't believe he played a great part in history. But he built sixteen
ships in his day, and our house flag circled the world many times.
Sixteen big ships, and the last one was the Harvest Home, the China
clipper that paid for herself three times before an Indian Ocean monsoon
swallowed her."
"Well, if he made all that money, are you going to sea for the fun of
it?"
"There are no more Yankee wooden ships on the sea. My poor father
thought he was wise when the wooden ships were crowded off. He put his
money into railroads--and you know what has happened to most of the
folks who have put their money into new railroads."
"I'm afraid I don't know much about business."
"The hawks caught the doves. It was a game that was played all over New
England. The folks whose money built the roads were squeezed out. Long
before my mother died our money was gone, but my father and I did not
allow her to know it. We mortgaged and gave her what she had always been
used to. And when my father died there was nothing!"
Her eyes glistened. "That's chivalry," she cried. "That's the spirit of
the knights of old when women were concerned. I adore you for what you
did!"
"It was the way my father and I looked at it," he said, mildly. "My
father was not a very practical man, but I always agreed with him. And
I am happy now, earning my own living. Why should I think my grandfather
ought to have worked all his life so that I would not need to work?"