"No matter what you may be to conductors, you'll always be baby to daddy, you little darling," he said, brightly. Then, turning to Blake, with lightness born of great earnestness:
"Take good care of them while I'm gone, won't you, old man. By Jove, I'd like to chuck it all, even at the last minute as it is, and stay at home—"
Facing his wife, child and friend, his eyes were up the broad deck. Came toward him The Woman—The Woman known of The Man Who Knew, and of Young Parmalee. Schuyler's voice died in his throat. Her eyes were upon him. His eyes were upon her. She made no movement. She paused not in her indolent, sinuous walk. Her eyes were upon him; and that was all—dark eyes, glowing, inscrutable, beautiful with the beauty that was hers. And his eyes were on hers…. She turned up the narrow passageway in which lay Schuyler's stateroom…. Blake saw, too. He was not of those who live in the froth of things—that froth of things that is the scum. But he was of the world; and they who are of the world have knowledge of all that that world contains—of all, that is, that it is for such as they to know.
Kathryn looked up, at length, anxiously. Schuyler was never abstracted.
She prompted:
"You were saying, Jack, dear—"
Schuyler drew his hand, palm out, across his forehead.
"Why—oh, yes," he floundered, trying to marshal his scattered thoughts.
"I was saying—" He appealed to Blake, half-helplessly, half-whimsically.
"By Jove, that's strange. What was I saying, Tom?"
Blake replied, shortly:
"You were asking me to take good care of them."
Schuyler nodded.