“You thought I cared for him!” she chided. “That's only the man my father has picked out for me! Why, I wouldn't even allow my father to select a yachting-cap for me, much less a husband. I'll tell him so when the time comes!”
Mayo's brows wrinkled in spite of himself. The morrow seemed to play small part in the calculations of this maid.
“Money—that's all there is to Arthur Beveridge. My father has enough money for all of us. And if he is stingy with us—oh, it's easy enough to earn money, isn't it? All men can earn money.”
Captain Mayo, sailor, was not sure of his course in financial waters and did not reply.
“Miss Alma! I say! Oh, where are you?”
“Even that silly, little, dried-up man,” she jeered, with a duck of her head in the direction of the drawling voice, “goes down to Wall Street and makes thousands and thousands of dollars whenever he feels like it. And you could put him in your reefer pocket. They will all be afraid of you when you go down to Wall Street to make lots of money for us two. You shall see! Kiss me! Kiss me once! Kiss me quick! Here he comes!”
He obeyed, released her, and when Beveridge shoved his wizened face in at the door they were bending over the chart.
“Oh, I say, we have missed you. They are asking for you.”
She did not turn to look at him. “I have something else on my mind, Arthur, besides lolling below listening to Wally Dalton fiddle love-tunes. And this passage, here, Captain Mayo! What is it?” Her finger strayed idly across a few hundred miles of mapped Atlantic Ocean.
“It's Honeymoon Channel,” replied the navigator, demurely. His new ecstasy made him bold enough to jest.