“I don't believe you, Mr. Harvey Carr. But I'll find out all about you by and by. You'll have to just tell me everything. Now guess again.”
“The captain of the Lafayette. He asked each of your sisters to marry him, I know, and I suppose you followed in turn as soon as you began to wear long dresses.”
“That horrible man! We all hated him. No, indeed, it was somebody better than the captain of a whaler.”
“Don't be so superior, Tess. Your brother Ned hopes to be skipper of a whaler some day.”
“But Ned is very good-looking, and——”
“So was old Ayton before he lost his teeth, and one eye, and began 'ter chaw terbacker' and drink Bourbon by the gallon.... Beauty is only skin deep, my child.”
“Oh, you, you—I don't know what to call you, but I do know that I have a round turn of your moustache in my hand, and could make you go on your knees if I liked. Now guess again; you're getting 'warmer,' because it—he I mean—is a captain. Quick, and don't struggle so. I mean to keep you here just as long as I please.”
“Well, then, old Freeman. He's a captain, or was one about a hundred years ago, when he was much younger than he is now.” (Freeman was a nonogenerian settler on Ponapé and a neighbour of Tessa's father.)
“Don't be so silly! I've a great mind not to tell you at all, but as you haven't whimpered when I pulled your moustache I shall tell you—it—he, I mean—was Captain Reade, of the United States ship Narrangansett. Now!”
Then all her raillery vanished in a moment. “He was a great friend of father's, you know, Harvey; and first he asked father, and father said I was too young, and then when I was leaving school in San Francisco to come home he wrote to me and asked me if he could come and see me. And he did come, and asked me to marry him.”