“Ah!” said Dick. “To whom do you propose to offer it?”
“Miss Kenwardine,” Jake replied with a twinkle; “though of course her proper color’s Madonna blue.”
Dick said nothing, but walked on, and when Jake asked where he was going, answered shortly: “To the telephone.”
“Well,” said Jake, “knowing you as I do, I suspected something of the kind. With the romance of the South all round you, you can’t rise above concrete and coal.”
He followed Dick to the public telephone office and sat down in the box with the flowers in his hands. A line had recently been run along the coast, and although the service was bad, Dick, after some trouble, got connected with a port official at Arenas.
“Did a tug and three coal barges put into your harbor last night?” he asked.
“No, señor,” was the answer, and Dick asked for the coal wharf at Adexe.
“Why didn’t you call them first?” Jake inquired.
“I had a reason. The tug was standing to leeward when she left us, but if her skipper meant to come back to Santa Brigida, he’d have to put into Arenas, where he’d find shelter.”
“Then you’re not sure he meant to come back?”