Both were silent for a few minutes; it might be noticed that people often became thoughtful when they spoke of the past in those years. Indeed, an optimist might almost have had some ground for believing that a thinking era had begun.
When he spoke again it was with something of an air of constraint. "You asked me just now if there was—anything. Well, I have since thought——"
"Yes?" she said encouragingly.
"I have thought that I should like to meet your father. I hear everywhere that he is the most inaccessible man in London; but perhaps if you could favour me with a line of introduction——"
"Oh yes," she exclaimed gladly. "I am sure that he would wish to thank you. I will write to-morrow."
"I have paper and a pencil here," he suggested. "I have been a sailor," he added, as though that simple statement explained an omnipercipient resourcefulness; as perhaps it did.
"If you prefer it," she said, accepting the proffered stationery. It did not make the least difference, she told herself, but this business-like expedition chilled her generous instincts.
"I leave for town to-night," was all he vouchsafed.
For a few minutes she wrote in silence, while he looked fixedly out to sea. "What name am I to write, please?" she asked presently.
"Oh, Salt—George Salt," he replied in a matter-of-fact voice, and without turning his head.