It was on the tip of David's tongue to tell him that these were the people whom he had preferred to see on that day a year ago when Mr. Cochran had flown into a rage and cast him off. But this was no time to recall old misunderstandings. All David could do was to wait in patience, and hope that Mr. Cochran might discover what a splendid man Captain John was, and take an interest in him on his own account.
The automobile halted in front of a huge stone mansion in upper Fifth Avenue. It looked more like a castle than a home. The immense tapestry-hung parlors, past which David was led, were silent and cheerless. Captain John's flat was far more cheery and livable than these gloomy apartments, thought David, as he followed his host up the echoing marble staircase to the second story.
Presently they came to a smaller room which looked as if people really lived in it. A slender woman in black rose from a divan to greet them. In her smile there was the timid, tremulous sweetness which had made her boy so attractive to David on first acquaintance. There could have been little in common between her and the hard, domineering father until a great grief bridged the gulf that had grown between them. Even now, she looked at Mr. Cochran with an appealing glance, as if waiting for him to speak. David wanted to pick her up in his strong young arms and comfort her.
"So this is the boy that Arthur said he wished he could be like," were her first words, as she looked up at David's brown face and well-set shoulders. "Why, you are not a boy. You are a man."
"I've grown a lot in the last year, and sea life agrees with me," laughed David, with a blush at her frank admiration.
"That is what the doctors told Mr. Cochran when he planned the trip abroad for Arthur, in the yacht," sighed the mother. "He did not ask me to go, because I am such a wretched sailor, I suppose. I expected to join them later in the south of France."
"It is a good deal better for a man's health when he has to work his way," explained David. "Sitting under a yacht's awning all day isn't a bit like having your regular watches to stand in all weathers. When Arthur comes home you will find him fit as a fiddle. Being adrift for a few days will do him good."
"How awful!" exclaimed Mrs. Cochran, nervously clasping her hands. "Why I have done almost nothing except carry out the doctors' orders for his health since he was a baby."
"That may be partly the trouble, mother," remarked Mr. Cochran. "I'd give half I own to see him looking like this big lad here. I met some of his friends to-night. They are coming up to see you soon. You can't help liking them. They are the kind we used to know down East, ages and ages ago, 'when we were so happy and so poor.'"