"Even that silly, little, dried-up man," she jeered, with a duck of her
head in the direction of the drawling voice, "goes down to Wall Street
and makes thousands and thousands of dollars whenever he feels like it.
And you could put him in your reefer pocket. They will all be afraid of
you when you go down to Wall Street to make lots of money for us two.
You shall see! Kiss me! Kiss me once! Kiss me quick! Here he comes!"
He obeyed, released her, and when Beveridge shoved his wizened face in
at the door they were bending over the chart.
"Oh, I say, we have missed you. They are asking for you."
She did not turn to look at him. "I have something else on my mind,
Arthur, besides lolling below listening to Wally Dalton fiddle
love-tunes. And this passage, here, Captain Mayo! What is it?" Her
finger strayed idly across a few hundred miles of mapped Atlantic Ocean.
"It's Honeymoon Channel," replied the navigator, demurely. His new
ecstasy made him bold enough to jest.
"Oh, so we are learning to be a captain, Miss Alma?" inquired Beveridge
with a wry smile.
"It would be better if more yacht-owners knew how to manage their own
craft," she informed him, with spirit.
"Yes, it might keep the understrappers in line," agreed the man at
the door.. "I apply for the position of first mate after you qualify,
Captain Alma."
"And this, you say, is, Captain Mayo?" she queried, without troubling
herself to reply. Her tone was crisply matter of fact.
Beveridge blinked at her and showed the disconcerted uneasiness of a man
who has intruded in business hours.
Captain Mayo, watching the white finger rapturously, noted that it was
sweeping from the Arctic Circle to the Tropic Zone. "That's Love Harbor,
reached through the thoroughfare of Hope," he answered, respectfully.
"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Beveridge; "the sailors who laid out that course
must have been romantic."
"Sailors have souls to correspond with their horizon, Arthur. Would you
prefer such names as Cash Cove and Money-grub Channel?"
Mr. Beveridge cocked an eyebrow and stared at her eloquent back; also,
he cast a glance of no great favor on the stalwart young captain of the
Olenia. It certainly did not occur to Mr. Beveridge that two young
folks in love were making sport of him. That Julius Marston's daughter
would descend to a yacht captain would have appeared as incredible an
enormity as an affair with the butler. But there was something about
this intimate companionship of the chart-room which Mr. Beveridge did
not relish. Instinct rather than any sane reason told him that he was
not wanted.