It was some time before he was able to catch Miss Snowden alone, but at last he did and, as it happened, in that same summer-house, the Eyrie, where he had first seen her. The interview began, on her part, as frostily as a February morning in Greenland, but ended like a balmy evening in Florida. The day following he laid his plans to meet and speak with Mrs. Brackett and the militant Susanna thereafter became as peaceful, so far as he was concerned, as a dovecote in spring. Elizabeth Berry, noticing these changes, and surmising their cause, regarded him with something like awe.
"Really, Cap'n Kendrick," she said, "I'm beginning to be a little afraid of you. When you first spoke of interviewing Elvira Snowden alone I—well, I was strongly tempted to send for the constable. I didn't know what might happen. She was saying—so Esther Tidditt told me—the most dreadful things about you and I was frightened for your safety. And Mrs. Brackett was just as savage. And now—why, Elvira this very morning told me, herself, that she considered your taking the management here a blessing. I believe she did call it a blessing in disguise, but that doesn't make any real difference. And Susanna—three days ago—was calling upon all our—guests here to threaten to leave in a body, as a protest against the giving over of the management of their own Harbor to a—excuse me—man like you. I don't know she meant by that, but it is what she said. And now——"
"Just a minute, Miss Elizabeth. Called me a man, did she? Well, comin' from her that's a compliment, in a way. She ought to know she's the nearest thing, herself, to a man that I've about ever seen in skirts. But that's nothin'. What interests me is that idea of all the crew aboard here threatenin' to leave. They could, I suppose, if they wanted to same as anybody aboard a ship could jump overboard. But in both cases the question would be the same, wouldn't it? Where would they go to after they left?"
Miss Berry smiled. "They have no idea of leaving," she said. "But they like to think—or pretend to think—that they could if they wanted to and that the Fair Harbor would go to rack and ruin if they did. It comes, you see, of to paying that hundred dollars a year. That, to their mind—and I imagine Mrs. Phillips had it in her mind too, when she planned this place—prevents it being a 'home' in the ordinary sense of the word. But Susanna's threatening to leave amounts to nothing. What I am so much interested in is to know how you changed her attitude and Elvira's from war to peace? How did you do it, Cap'n Kendrick?"
The captain's left eyelid drooped. He smiled. "Well," he said, slowly, "I tell you. I've sailed in all sorts of weather and I've come to the conclusion that when you're in a rough sea the first thing to do, if you can, is to smooth it down. If you can't—why, then fight it. The best treatment I know for a rough sea is to sling a barrel of oil over the bows. It's surprisin' what a little bit of oil will do to make things smoother for a vessel. It's always worth tryin', anyway, and that's how I felt in this case of Elvira and Susanna. When I started to beat up into their neighborhood I had a barrel of oil slung over both my port and starboard bows. I give you my word, Miss Elizabeth, I was the oiliest craft afloat in these waters, I do believe."
His smile broadened. Elizabeth smiled too, but her smile was a bit uncertain.
"I—I think I understand you, Cap'n Kendrick," she said. "But I'm not quite sure. How did you—— Would you mind being just a little more clear? Won't you explain a little more fully?"
"Surely. Easiest thing in the world. Take Sister Snowden. I cast anchor under her lee—and 'twas like tyin' up to an iceberg at first. Ha, ha!—and I began by sayin' that I had been waitin' for a chance to speak with her alone. There were a few things I wanted to explain, I said. I told her that of course I realized she was not like the average, common run of females here in the Harbor. I knew that so far as brains and refinement and—er—beauty were concerned she was far, far ahead, had all the rest of 'em hull down, so to speak."
"Cap'n Kendrick, you didn't!"
"Eh! Well, maybe I left out the 'beauty,' but otherwise than that I told her just that thing. The ice began to melt a little and when I went on to say that I realized how much the success of the Fair Harbor depended on her sense and brains and so on she was obliged to give in that she agreed with me. It was what she had thought all the time, you see; so when I told her I thought so too, we began to get on a common fishin' ground, so to speak. And the more I hinted at how wonderful I thought she was the smarter she began to think I was. It ended in a sort of understandin' between us. I am to do the best I can as skipper here and she is to help along in the fo'castle, as you might say. When I need any of her suggestions I'm to go and ask her for 'em. And we aren't either of us goin' to tell the rest of the crew—or passengers, or whatever you call 'em—a word. When she and I separated there was a puddle of oil all around that Eyrie place, but there wasn't a breaker in sight. Ha, ha! Oh, dear!"