"I suppose it's different with a big, strong man and a woman. She needs
so much that a man must give her."
Captain Mayo became promptly silent, crestfallen, and embarrassed. He
stared aft, he looked at the splendid yacht whose finances he managed
and whose extravagance he knew. He saw the girl at his side, and blinked
at the gems which flashed in the sunlight as her fingers tucked up the
locks of hair where the breeze had wantoned.
"I think my father works because he loves it," she said. "I wish he
would rest and enjoy other things more. If mother had lived to influence
him perhaps he would see something else in life instead of merely piling
up money. But he doesn't listen to me. He gives me money and tells me to
go and play. I miss my mother, boy! I haven't anybody to talk with--who
understands!"
There were tears in her eyes, and he was grateful for them. He felt
that she had depths in her nature. But keen realization of his position,
compared with hers, distressed him. She stood there, luxury incarnate,
mistress of all that money could give her.
"Anybody can make money," she declared. "My father and those men are
sitting there and building plans to bring them thousands and thousands
of dollars. All they need to do is put their heads together and plan.
Every now and then I hear a few words. They're going to own all the
steamboats--or something of that kind. Anybody can make money, I say,
but there are so few who know how to enjoy it."
"I have been doing a lot of thinking since last night--Alma." He
hesitated when he came to her name, and then blurted it out.
"Do you think it is real lover-like to treat my name as if it were a
hurdle that you must leap over?" she asked, with her aggravating little
chuckle. "Oh, you have so much to learn!"
"I'm afraid so. I have a great many things ahead of me to learn and do.
I have been thinking. I have been afraid of the men who sit and scheme
and put all their minds on making money. They did bitter things to us,
and we didn't understand until it was all over. But I must go among them
and watch them and learn how to make money."
"Don't be like the others, now, and talk money--money," she said,
pettishly. "Money and their love-affairs--that's the talk I have heard
from men ever since I was allowed to come into the drawing-room out of
the nursery!"