DURING the first few days of our southward voyaging the routine on
board fell easily into the rut predicted by Van Dyck in the talk across
the dinner-table in the New Orleans hotel; three meals a day, a good
bit of more or less listless lounging under the awnings between times,
and rather half-hearted battles with the cards in the evenings.
Day after day we had the same cloudless skies, and the same gentle
breeze quartering over the port bow; and each morning there was
apparently the same school of porpoises tumbling in the swell under
the yacht's forefoot. Marking the course, I saw little change in it
from day to day. We were still steering either south or a few points
east of south, and if Van Dyck had any intention of touching at any of
the Central American ports, the telltale compass in the ceiling of the
dining-saloon did not indicate it.
Of the growth of Bonteck's cynical scheme of human analysis there were
as yet no signs visible to the casual bystander. Mrs. Eager Van Tromp
and Conetta's dragoness aunt sat in the shade of the after-deck awning,
reading novels, and fanning themselves in moments when the breeze
failed; and the Van Tromp trio, sometimes with Conetta and Madeleine
Barclay, and always with Billy Grisdale and his bull pup, when they
were not pointedly driven away, roamed the ship from bow to stern,
and from bridge to engine-room. The Greys, prolonging their honeymoon,
hid themselves in out-of-the way corners like a pair of lovers; and
the Sanfords, serenely enjoying their first real vacation, could be
stumbled upon now and then--so Billy Grisdale averred--holding hands
quite like the younger pair.
As for the men, candor compels the admission that the deadly blight of
_ennui_ seemed to be slowly settling down upon at least four of us. Van
Dyck, though scrupulously careful of his responsibilities as host, was
anything but good company when he was off duty. The major and Holly
Barclay, with Ingerson and anybody who could be dragooned into taking a
fourth hand, played cards hours on end in the yacht's smoking-room; for
nominal stakes, John Grey hinted, when neither Ingerson nor Van Dyck
was sitting in, but with the sky for the limit when either of the two
really rich men was present and betting.
The second time Grey mentioned this I thought it might be well to dig a
little deeper.
"You are Bonteck's guest, Jack, and so am I," I said bluntly. "Are you
making charges?"
"Not me," returned the married lover, with a lapse into prematrimonial
carelessness of speech. And then, after a reflective moment, "But for
that matter, I don't have to make them, Preble. Everybody buys wisdom
of the major now and then over the card table. It has come to be a
proverb, back home. For a supposedly rich man he plays a mighty thrifty
game--and that remark is not original with me, not by a long shot."
"Possibly the major is saving his money for Gerald," I suggested, more
to see what Grey would say than for any other reason.
Grey's slow wink was more expressive than many words.
"That worn-out joke doesn't fool you any more than it does me," he
asserted baldly. "You've never seen Major Terwilliger in his great and
unapproachable act of coupon-clipping, have you?"