The young officer smiled and saluted Miss Depew again. He was a very ladylike young man, Mr. Neilsen had thought, and an obvious example of the degeneracy of England. But Mr. Neilsen's plump arm was still bruised by the steely grip with which that lean young hand had helped him aboard, so his conclusions were mixed.
The engines of the Ruth were thumping now, and the Hispaniola was melting away over the smooth gray swell. They watched her for a minute or two, till she became spectral in the distance. Then the youthful representative of the British Admiralty turned, like a thoughtful host, to his prisoner.
"Would you like thum tea?" he lisped sympathetically. "Your Uncle Hyathinth mutht have given you an awfully anxiouth time."
Herr Krauss grunted inarticulately. He was looking like a very happy little Bismarck.
III
THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
Undoubtedly Captain Julius Vandermeer had made a pile of money. A Dutch sea-captain who had been the chief owner of his vessel in the first two years of the war was a lucky dog. A couple of voyages might bring him more than he could hope to make in half a century of peace. If he were lucky enough to make forty or fifty successful voyages across the Atlantic he could do exactly what Captain Vandermeer had done—retire from the sea, invest his money, look for a handsome young wife, and expect the remainder of his years to mellow round him like an orchard, dropping all the most pleasant fruits of life at his feet. Best of all, despite the gray streaks in his bushy red beard, he was only half-way through the forties, and he knew how to enjoy himself.
He sat on the veranda of his white bungalow under the foothills of the Sierra Madre, puffing at his big meerschaum pipe and explaining these things to the lady whom he had just married.
"Long ago I settled it in my mind, Mimika," he said, "if ever I came to be rich there should only be one country in the world for me, and that should be Southern California. Look at it!"