Daniel straightened in his chair. “To Serena!” he repeated. “Talk against Chapter to Serena! John, you don't know what you're sayin'. One time—just one—I did talk that way. I biled over and I damned that Chapter and the gang in it, cussed 'em in good plain United States. But I'll never do it again. Once was enough.”
He was so very serious that his companion fore-bore to laugh.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why! John, you ain't married or you wouldn't ask that. I'm a peaceable body and I like peace in the house. More'n that, I hate to go 'round feelin' like a sneak thief. That one damn made me miserable for two days. I never swore to Serena afore and I never will again. She was all cut up over it and in a way she was right. No, swearin' aboard ship is one thing—I've had mates that couldn't navigate without it—but ashore in your own house, to the women folks you care for, it don't go. I can't talk to Serena about that Chapter—not even if I'm left alone ALL the time, same as I'm left to-night.”
John nodded. He thought that, at last, he had reached the milk in the cocoanut. Captain Dan, with his love for home and his hatred of lodges and societies, had refused to be interested in his wife's pet hobby, and felt himself neglected and forsaken. He had brooded upon it, and this outburst and the letter he had written were the consequences.
“Oh, well,” he said. “I shouldn't worry. The Chapter here is a large one and Mrs. Dott is interested in it. The interest will wear off when it gets to be an old story.”
“Wear off! With Gertie goin' it harder than her mother ever thought of?”
“Oh, Gertie doesn't mean it.”
“She DON'T! She don't! Perhaps you don't think she means it when she goes to every 'tea' and 'recital' and 'at home' and crazy dido from here to Beersheba and back. Is THAT goin' to wear off? Chasin' around with Cousin Percy and that Holway and land knows who?”
“What? Captain Dott, you're making mountains out of mole hills. Gertie isn't that kind.”