In Great Waters: Four Stories

by Thomas A. Janvier

The Major's look of eager cheerfulness faded at the beginning of this cooling rejoinder, but he brightened again at its end. "A talk with youah fatheh, suh," he answered, "would suit me down to the ground-flo'. An oppo'tunity to discuss this great matteh info'mally with a great capitalist has been what I've most desiahed fo' yeahs. But I beg youah pahdon, suh. I am fo'getting the sacred duties of hospitality. Pehmit me to fill youah glass."

It seemed to pain him that his guest refused this invitation; but, finding him obdurate, he kept the sacred duties of hospitality in working order by exercising them freely upon himself. "Heah's to the glorious futuah of Minnesotah Point, suh!" he said as he raised his glass—and it was obvious that he would be off again upon the exploitation of his hopelessly impossible project as soon as he put it down. Greatly to Maltham's relief, the door opened at that juncture and Ulrica entered to call them to dinner; and he was still more relieved, when they were seated at table, by finding that his host dropped business matters and left the glorious future of Minnesota Point hanging in the air.

At his own table, indeed, the Major was quite at his best. He told good stories of his army life, and of his adventurous wanderings which ended when he struck Duluth just at the beginning of its first "boom"; and very entertaining was what he had to tell of that metropolis in its embryotic days.

But good though the Major's stories were, Maltham found still more interesting the Major's daughter—who spoke but little, and who seemed to be quite lost at times in her own thoughts. As he sat slightly turned toward her father he could feel her eyes fixed upon him; and more than once, facing about suddenly, he met her look full. When this happened she was not disconcerted, nor did she immediately look away from him—and he found himself thrilled curiously by her deeply intent gaze. Yet the very frankness of it gave it a quality that was not precisely flattering. He had the feeling that she was studying him in much the same spirit that she would have studied some strange creature that she might have come across in her walks in the woods. When he tried to bring her into the talk he did not succeed; but this was mainly because the Major invariably cut in before he could get beyond a direct question and a direct reply. Only once—when her father made some reference to her love for sailing—was her reserve, which was not shyness, a little broken; and the few words that she spoke before the Major broke in again were spoken so very eagerly that Maltham resolved to bring her back to that subject when he could get the chance. Knowing something of the ways of women, he knew that to set her to talking about anything in which she was profoundly interested would lower her guard at all points—and so would enable him to come in touch with her thoughts. He wanted to get at her thoughts. He was sure that they were not of a commonplace kind.

V

When the dinner was ended he made a stroke for the chance that he wanted. "Will you show me your boat?" he asked. "I'm a bit of a sailor myself, and I should like to see her very much indeed."

"Oh, would you? I am so glad!" she answered eagerly. And then added more quietly: "It is a real pleasure to show you the Nixie. I am very fond of her and very proud of her. Father gave her to me three years ago—after he sold a lot over in West Superior. And it was very good of him, because he does not like sailing at all. Will you come now? It is only a step down to the wharf."

The Major declared that he must have his after-dinner pipe in comfort, and they went off without him—going out by a side door and across a half-acre of kitchen-garden, still in winter disorder, to the wharf on the bay-side where the Nixie was moored. She was a half-decked twenty-foot cat-boat, clean in her lines and with the look of being able to hold her own pretty well in a blow.