“In tubs!” breathed Miss Andrews.
Miss Means joined them then, book under arm; and met his offer to tuck her up with a crisply pointed, “No, thank you!”
He soon drifted away.
Said Miss Andrews: “Weren't you a little hard on him, Gerty?”
“My dear,” replied Miss Means severely—her Puritan vein strongly uppermost—“that young man won't do. Not at all. I saw him myself, one night at the Astor House, going into one of those private dining-rooms with a woman who—well, her character, or lack of it, was unmistakable!... Right there in the hotel.... under his father's eyes. That's what too much money will do to a young man, if you ask me!”
“Oh....!” breathed Miss Andrews, looking out with startled eyes at the gulls.
It was mid-afternoon when Captain Benjamin remarked to his first mate: “Tex Connor's got down to work, Mr. Duane. Better try to stop it, if you don't mind. They're in young Kane's cabin—sixteen.”
Number sixteen was the last cabin aft in the port side, next the canvas screen that separated upper class white from upper class yellow. The wooden shutters had been drawn over the windows and the light turned on within. Cigarette smoke drifted thickly out.
They were slow to open. Doane heard the not unfamiliar voice of the Manila Kid advising against it. He had to knock repeatedly. They were crowded together in the narrow space between berth and couch, a board across their knees—Connor twisting his head to fix his one eye on the intruder, the Kid, in his check suit, a German of the customs and Rocky Kane. There were cards, chips and a heap of money in American and English notes and gold.
“What is it?” cried Kane. “What do you want?”