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.