"Your fortune, and how?" asked Sabine, much surprised.
"Why, mademoiselle," interrupted Segoffin, hastily, "it is in this gentleman's interest that your father has made so many—so many trips."
"That is true, mademoiselle," replied the ship owner, "and every one, almost without exception, has yielded rich returns."
"Yes, he is a great manufacturer," whispered Segoffin, edging in between Sabine and Suzanne. "We sell lots of goods for him during our trips."
"Then you are at least partially accountable for the anxiety which my father's frequent absences cause me, monsieur," remarked Sabine.
"And you have no idea how unreasonable mademoiselle is, monsieur," chimed in Suzanne. "She frets just as much as if her father were really in some danger—"
"Some danger! Ah, my dear lady, you may well say—"
"Yes, it is astonishing how people deceive themselves," interrupted Segoffin, with great volubility. "Everybody thinks that everybody else has an easy time of it, and because a person makes a good deal of money, other people think he has only to stop and rake it up."
"Appearances are, indeed, very deceitful, my dear young lady," remarked the ship owner, "and though your father makes so light of the danger he incurs, I assure you that in the last fight—"
"Fight?" exclaimed the young girl, in astonishment; "fight?"