Nor was it one of those cocktails that are poured from a bottle, and served hot out of a silver-snouted shaker on a sloppy waiter, but a masterpiece from the hands of an artist, who took pride in his handiwork.
With the modesty of a chorus girl with a good figure on a “first night,” he toasted the valet with much ceremony.
Soon he was dressed in the mess jacket of a petty officer, and putting a yachting cap jauntily on his head, he went out to seek his friend. The valet told him he would find Mr. Edestone in the breakfast room, and he was shown thither by an officer who was waiting for him.
As he passed along, he could not divest himself of the idea that he was on board Edestone’s yacht, the Storm Queen again, only that everything here was on a larger scale. The breakfast room, he discovered, was on the same deck but farther forward, and was reached by passing through a large room furnished as a general living-room.
Edestone came forward to greet him with a rather melancholy expression on his face. He was dressed in a yachtsman’s dinner jacket which fitted him perfectly, and with his bandaged head, he looked more than ever the sea lord. His rank of Captain was shown by the stripes on his arm.
The room was, as one would expect Edestone to have in his New York or country house, simple but handsome.
He had just been giving some orders about the windows which were of the same form and size as those Lawrence had remarked in his own room, and like them opened against a wall; but at Lawrence’s appearance, he interrupted these instructions.
“I am glad to see you aboard.” He presented his hand, which Lawrence took with his left. “I had looked forward to your first trip with me with so much pleasure. But how different it is from the way I had pictured it. I cannot get Fred, Stanton, or my two sailors out of my mind.”
Lawrence’s own face saddened, but for Edestone’s sake he endeavoured to speak philosophically.
“The fortunes of war, old man. Why grieve? You certainly were not to blame.”