"Damn the captain."
"So say I. You stole a march on him in the Hesperian Garden, and we both escaped the jaws of the absent Dragon."
Soon after their guests left the house Madam Blennerhassett and Evaleen Hale, standing by an open window in a chamber upstairs, looked out toward the wharf. They heard the voices of the watermen and the noise made in shoving out from the gravel beach. Then came silence, and they knew the ark was adrift, bearing away two passengers whom they could not easily forget, but expected never to meet again.
"How delightful he is!" mused the madam, speaking more to herself than to her friend.
"Do you think so?" returned Evaleen abstractedly.
"Perfectly captivating! A brilliant mind! I am charmed with him, are not you?"
"He is pleasant enough, but too bold, too audacious, isn't he?"
"Not, I think, Evaleen, for a person of his age. We expect more freedom in elderly men."
"Elderly! Why, he can't be more than twenty-five!
"Twenty-five! My dear child, he has a married daughter!"