He paused.
"I think this place was beautiful because here I had been loved beautifully." And now he shrugged his shoulders. "But perhaps it is only that my æsthetic sense is gratified by the happy conjunction of young love and a suitable setting."
Even a man less thick-witted than the skipper might have been forgiven if he were bewildered by Neilson's words. For he seemed faintly to laugh at what he said. It was as though he spoke from emotion which his intellect found ridiculous. He had said himself that he was a sentimentalist, and when sentimentality is joined with scepticism there is often the devil to pay.
He was silent for an instant and looked at the captain with eyes in which there was a sudden perplexity.
"You know, I can't help thinking that I've seen you before somewhere or other," he said.
"I couldn't say as I remember you," returned the skipper.
"I have a curious feeling as though your face were familiar to me. It's been puzzling me for some time. But I can't situate my recollection in any place or at any time."
The skipper massively shrugged his heavy shoulders.
"It's thirty years since I first come to the islands. A man can't figure on remembering all the folk he meets in a while like that."
The Swede shook his head.