"Not much floral-anchor business about those two, eh, Captain?" asked Mr. Todd, genially, of that magnate, as he strolled toward them.
"I admit the coast population to be amphibious," laughed the Captain, "but you can't make admirals out of fishermen. Miss Gwendolen, it will soon be time to look for Few-ji."
"Oh, oh!" cried Gwendolen again. She was made up, this morning, of wind-tossed golden hair and expletives. "Certainly no one ever saw it, truly, at such a distance!"
"I have," boasted Dodge. "On a clear day I've seen the thing a hundred miles off, when it looked like a little white tee on a blue golf links, don't you know."
"Golf links!" echoed Gwendolen. "What an unworthy simile!"
"Why not links?—first-class thing, a good links! Don't you play, Miss Todd?"
"No," answered Gwendolen, truthfully, "I don't play, but I like to pose, the costumes are so utterly fetching; and I dote on standing with my driver behind me, like girls in illustrated picture papers."
She turned to search the shimmering horizon for the vision it would not yield. "Oh, where is that mountain! I wish Yuki would come. It might appear directly for Yuki-ko."
"Here is Yuki," said the low, strange voice that could have belonged to no other.
Gwendolen seized her. "Good-morning, Miss Onda," smiled Dodge. "Now we are all fit. Kindly invoke your enchanted summit to our wondering gaze. I have been told that it was bad luck to land after a long journey without a glimpse of Fuji-san."