"Do you find your duties in connection with the—ah—retreat next door arduous, Captain Kendrick?" he inquired.
"Eh?... Oh, no, I don't know as I'd call 'em that, exactly."
"I imagine not, I imagine not. You are—you are, I gather, a sort of—oh—— What should I call you, captain; in your official capacity, you know?"
He laughed pleasantly. Sears smiled.
"Give it up," he replied. "I told Elizabeth—Miss Berry, I mean—when I first took the berth that I scarcely knew what it was."
"Ha, ha! Yes, I can imagine. Miss Berry—charming girl, isn't she, captain—intimated to me that your position was somewhat—ah—general. You exercise a sort of supervision over the finances and management, in a way, do you not?"
"In a way, yes."
"Yes. Of course, my dear sir, you understand that I am not unduly curious. I don't mean to be. This—ah—Fair Harbor was, as you know, very dear to the heart of Mrs. Phillips and, now that she has been taken from me, I feel, of course, a sense of trust, of sacred responsibility. We had understood, she and I, that our dear friend—Judge Knowles—was in supreme charge—nominally, I mean; of course Mrs. Berry was in actual charge—and, therefore, I confess to a natural feeling of—shall I say surprise, on learning that the judge had appointed another person, an understudy, as it were?"
"Well, you couldn't be any more surprised than I was when the judge asked me to take the job. And Elizabeth and her mother know that I hesitated considerable before I did take it. Judge Knowles was in his last sickness, he couldn't attend to things himself."
Mr. Phillips raised a protesting hand. "Please don't misunderstand me," he said. "Don't, I beg of you, think for a moment that I am objecting to the judge's action, or even criticizing it. It was precisely the thing he should have done, what Mrs. Phillips and I would have wished him to do. And as for his choice of—ah—appointee——"