“That is the first thing I have heard you say that I didn’t like. ‘Position’ is a ridiculous word and one I don’t choose to recognize. And, in the second place, you know perfectly well that I was obliged to hear you ask for messages for Allen Breckenridge, so you evidently aren’t exactly what you seem, not that it is anything either for or against you.”
“Forgive me, I knew you would feel like that, but I just wanted to be sure. Allen Breckenridge is my name, but it seems an awful lot of name to sail under so I just chopped it off to suit me. Wonder what the family would say to the mutilation of the name.” Breck chuckled at the thought.
“If they are at all like the Kentucky Breckenridges, I can tell you. They would dilate their nostrils and pinch in their lips and say, ‘Really, it doesn’t seem possible that anyone could do such a ridiculous thing!’” Jane imitated the family hauteur.
“I can see that you know them all right,” Breck said. “They are a funny bunch, aren’t they?” His face took on the grave look that it so often wore and that had caused Mr. Wing to confide in Jane that he did not believe Breck was very happy.
It was a look that Jane hated to see there because she was so powerless to help him. She could not comfort him in ignorance of his trouble and her dread of intruding in his private affairs kept her from trying to discover it. Jane put her arm through his and said, “It’s getting late, Breck, we had better go back.”
Not until they were again on board the “Boojum” did either of them realize that, after all, they had seen very little of Gloucester.
CHAPTER VIII
WHAT FRANCES FOUND
“Portland harbor is so beautiful that I hate to leave it,” Ellen said to the other girls as they were getting under way.