The Judge had the damp evening paper in his hand, and he disregarded the steaming cup of tea which his daughter had poured for him.
"Well," he said, with a toss of self-satisfied import. "Now the newspapers are waking up to the significance of the California news." He then read from the paper, as nearly as I can recollect, something like the following:
San Francisco, June 26.—There is an intense and growing anxiety on this coast with respect to the non-appearance of any eastward-bound vessels. The breeze from the east continues, and is unprecedented.
"Now, I should like to know," said the Judge, as he laid down the paper and took up his tea-cup, "why a breeze from the east in California should be unprecedented."
"Because," I ventured to remark, "it usually blows from the sea at this season."
"Nonsense," exclaimed the Judge with vigor. "A variation for a few days in wind or weather is a common occurrence everywhere. Fancy a message sent all over the world from the West Indies that the trade winds were six days late, or a telegram from Minnesota that the winter frosts had been interfered with for a week by pleasant sunshine. No, sir. The event of importance to the Californian at this moment is the mysterious something that has happened out at sea, and there is no excuse for his associating a summer breeze from the east with it, except that there is something peculiar about that breeze that associates it in the mind with the predominant mystery."
I smiled. "You will pardon me, Judge, but it seems to me," I said, "that you are trying to invest the whole affair with an occult significance that is subjective. I suppose that in a few hours the matter will be explained and forgotten."
In a moment we were in one of those foolish little wrangles in which, so far as argument is concerned, the younger man is at a great disadvantage, when the elder, however unreasonable his claims, enforces them with the advantage of age and position. I remember that the desire to convince Kate on the one hand that I was free from what I conceived to be her father's unreasonableness, and sustain my independence of views on the other hand, led me to say much more than was polite, for I exasperated the old gentleman, and with a curt and not altogether complimentary remark he got up and left the room.
The moment he was gone I turned to the daughter and laughingly said: "Well, my dear, I am afraid I have offended your father without intending it, but you at least understand me, and are free from his superstition."
To my surprise she regarded me with a serious air, and replied: "I do not know what you mean by superstition. My father believes that something has happened, and I feel that he is right."