“I’ve heard from my correspondent in Jersey,” said Captain Welfare with a little grandiloquence, “of a bit of cargo there we might as well bring back. It will help to pay our expenses.”
“That’s delightful. The touch of business takes away all the sense of futility one usually has on a yacht.”
“Yes,” said Edmund, “going to look at places and photograph them simply because everyone else has labelled them pretty, or picturesque, or interesting or something. That kind of yachtsman is only an expensive kind of tripper after all.”
“I’ve had good times on a yacht too, I must admit,” I said with a retrospective sigh.
“And I never have,” said Edmund with sudden bitterness. “I’ve had to watch other people, ladies and asses in white flannels, floating into a harbour on some millionaire cheesemonger’s 1000-tonner, while I’ve stood, black to the eyes, watching the dagoes coal ship, or punching niggers on some bit of a trading scow. It’s simply a case of ‘sour grapes’ with me, old man!”
He ended with a laugh that grated on me. It was a cynical laugh, very unlike the Edmund of old, and yet, I felt, typical of much that I had noticed in his bearing since he had been home this time. I did not like to think of him having been driven to envy mere prosperous, idle people; and I was sure there was something deeper in his resentment than common jealousy of idleness and wealth. The bishop’s words came back to me with painful force—“There is nothing worse for a gentleman than to be déclassé.” And with this there recurred my old wonder, what it was that Edmund had “surrendered”?
“I don’t think you need envy anybody while you’re on the Astarte,” I said quietly.
“Oh! I haven’t a word to say against the Astarte,” Edmund admitted.
Captain Welfare leaned back with a sigh of relief. He had watched Edmund anxiously during his momentary discontent. Indeed I had noticed that he often seemed uneasy when Edmund expressed any dissatisfaction, as though some restraint were needed to keep him in the partnership. I attributed this merely to the want of steadfastness I knew so well in Edmund.
“Of course,” he said, as if in explanation, “we’ve not always been on the Astarte. We had some rough times before we got her, as you know, sir. But if things go as well as they’re doing for another three years, you’ll be able to have your own yacht, Mr. Edmund, and bother no more about cargoes.”