h," the Mater laughed, "don't think of your father's stupid office,
yet!"

"There's nothing left to think of," I grumbled.

"Isn't there?" he exclaimed. "What'd you say if Gates has the yacht in
commission, and you take a run down to Miami----"

"Or open the cottage, if you'd rather," she excitedly interrupted him.
"I hadn't intended leaving New York this winter, but will chaperon a
house party if you like!"

"Fiddlesticks! Cruise, by all means," he spoke with good-natured
emphasis. "Get another fellow, and go after adventures and romances and
that kind of thing! Go after 'em hammer and tongs! By George, that's
what I'd do if I were a boy, and had the chance!"

They waited, rather expectantly.

"Cruising's all right," I said, without enthusiasm. "But it's a waste of
time to go after romance and adventure. They died with the war."

"Ho!--they did, did they?" he laughed in mock derision. "What's become
of your imagination--your vaporings? You used to be full of it!" And the
Mater supported him by exclaiming:

"Why, Jack Bronx! And I used to call you my Pantheist! Don't tell me
your second sight for discovering the beautiful in things has failed
you!"

"It got put out by mustard gas, maybe," I murmured, remembering with
bitterness some of the fellows who had been with me.

What was romance here to the colorful, high-tensioned thing I had seen
in devastated areas where loves of all gradations were torn and
scattered and trampled into the earth like chaff! Fretfully I told them
this.

They exchanged glances, yet she continued in coaxing vein:

"You're such a big baby to've been such a big soldier! Don't you know
that romance is always just over the hill, hand in hand with
adventure--both lonely for someone to play with? Wars can't kill them!
It's after wars, when a nation is wounded, that they become priceless!"

"By George, that's right," Dad cried. "Come to think of it, that's
exactly right! And Gates has the same crew of six--men you've always
known! Even that rascal, Pete, cooks better 'n ever! The _Whim_, you
can't deny, is the smartest ninety-six foot schooner yacht that sails! I
say again that if I had the chance I'd turn her free on whatever magic
course the wings of the wind would take her! That I would--by George!"

And there was a note of deep appeal in the Mater's voice as she asked:

"Why not get that boy you wrote so much about--Tommy what's-his-name,
the Southerner? I like him!"

This plan,