"Perhaps these Américains improve as they mellow. And how brave of him! He is an old war horse."
"A sea-horse, you mean," laughed Belinda. "He is a dear old man, I agree. But remember, Aunt Roberta, he has three daughters. They might object very vigorously to the captain's assuming new marital duties at his age."
Aunt Roberta laughed gaily.
"Does he not say they are all three pacifists? They surely then cannot be militant. Ma foi! Non!"
The Belle o' Perth plowed as gaily through the sea as though no submarine menace was known. The wireless crackled a staccato warning now and then. Twice the ship's course was changed suddenly, but the officers made no public explanation.
Anxiety, however, set the officers' features in grim lines. There was a tenseness in their manner—a strained air like that of men waiting for a threatened catastrophe. Once the ship was convoyed all day and night by a great, gray-hulled cruiser that signaled back and forth to the liner, but flew only a small ensign at her peak.
It was hard to arouse any spirit of gaiety among the passengers. They partook of the expectant manner of the ship's officers. Many of them spent most of their waking hours sweeping the sea with opera glasses and binoculars. There was a reluctance to go to bed at night; yet the first cabin was not a cheerful place in which to spend the evening. No ship ever had a keener lookout than this, for passengers as well as crew were continually on the watch. Just what they were looking for, however, few could have told.
"They used to have pools on shipboard on the day's run, I remember, and on how many whales we'd spot, and the like," observed Sanderson. "I wonder how it would do to make a pool on whether or not we sight a submarine."
In a group by the rail on this supposedly next-to-the-last day of the voyage, were standing Belinda and her aunt, Captain Dexter and the aviator. The captain seldom troubled to use a glass.
"There's nothing the matter with my eyes," he often said, "if the rheumatism does ketch me in my game leg now and then.