"And where are you going?"
The doctor stood blinking down on the young man with his odd, sluggish little eyes. He appeared tired and not specially interested, yet there was a sort of negative friendliness in his attitude which Esther had not seen before.
"I may go out to the Argentine. There's a job offered me out there."
"South America!"
The sleepy gaze flickered over the whole slight, dapper person of the captain, betraying frank scorn.
"So that's it, is it?" He began feeling in his pocket for a cigarette, adding as an after-thought, "I suppose you've made up your mind about it?"
"Not entirely. But there's no point in sticking around here … as things are. There's precious little, I want to tell you, between me and starvation. Still, I'm taking a few weeks to think things over."
"Won't you lose the post if you let so much time go by?" inquired the doctor, with the heavy air of making conversation.
His friend's lip curled in easy contempt.
"Not this post," he answered laconically, and turned his attention to the sideboard. After a brief inspection of the array of bottles he called through the little passage that led to the kitchen: