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this transient little comedy of errors. 'Did you see any gold?' said Davies at last, with husky solemnity. Something had to be said or we should defeat our own end; but I let him say it. He had not my faith in Memmert. 'No, only mud and timber--oh, I forgot--' 'You mustn't betray the company's secrets,' I said, laughing; 'Commander von Bruening wouldn't tell us a word about the gold.' ('There's self-denial!' I said to myself.) 'Oh, I don't think it matters much,' she answered, laughing too. 'You are only visitors.' 'That's all,' I remarked, demurely. 'Just passing travellers.' 'You will stop at Norderney?' she said, with naive anxiety. 'Herr Davies said--' I looked to Davies; it was his affair. Fair and square came his answer, in blunt dog-German. 'Yes, of course, we shall. I should like to see your father again.' Up to this moment I had been doubtful of his final decision; for ever since our explanation at Bensersiel I had had the feeling that I was holding his nose to a very cruel grindstone. This straight word, clear and direct, beyond anything I had hoped for, brought me to my senses and showed me that his mind had been working far in advance of mine; and more, shaping a double purpose that I had never dreamt of. 'My father?' said Fraulein Dollmann; 'yes, I am sure he will be very glad to see you. There was no conviction in her tone, and her eyes were distant and troubled. 'He's not at home now, is he?' I asked. 'How did you know?' (a little maidenly confusion). 'Oh, Commander von Bruening.' I might have added that it had been clear as daylight all along that this visit was in the nature of an escapade of which her father might not approve. I tried to say 'I won't tell,' without words, and may have succeeded. 'I told Mr Davies when we first met,' she went on. 'I expect him back very soon--to-morrow in fact; he wrote from Amsterdam. He left me at Hamburg and has been away since. Of course, he will not know your yacht is back again. I think he expected Mr Davies would stay in the Baltic, as the season was so late. But--but I am sure he will be glad to see you.' 'Is the 'Medusa' in harbour?' said Davies. 'Yes; but we are not living on her now. We are at our villa in the Schwannallee--my stepmother and I, that is.' She added some details, and Davies gravely pencilled down the address on a leaf of the log-book; a formality which somehow seemed to regularize the present position.
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