Without noticing either Haltren or Darrow, he tested the slippery angle of the deck, almost slid off into the lagoon, clutched the rail with both pudgy hands, and glared at the water.
"I suppose," he said, peevishly, "that there are alligators in that water. I know there are!"
He turned his inflamed eyes on Haltren, but made no sign of recognition.
"Major," said Darrow, sharply, "you remember Dick Haltren--"
"Eh?" snapped the major. "Where the deuce did you come from, Haltren?"
"He was the man who hailed us. He took the wheel," said Darrow, meaningly.
"Nice mess you made of it between you," retorted the major, scowling his acknowledgments at Haltren.
Darrow, disgusted, turned on his heel; Haltren laughed. The sound of his own laugh amused him, and he laughed again.
"I don't see the humor," said the major. "The _Dione_ is blown half-way to the Bermudas by this time." He added, with a tragic gesture of his fat arms; "Are you aware that Mrs. Jack Onderdonk is aboard?"
The possible fate of Manhattan's queen regent so horrified Major Brent that his congested features assumed the expression of an alarmed tadpole.
But Haltren, the unaccustomed taste of mirth in his throat once more, stood there, dripping, dishevelled, and laughing. For four years he had missed the life he had been bred to; he had missed even what he despised in it, and his life at moments had become a hell of isolation. Time dulled the edges of his loneliness; solitude, if it hurts, sometimes cures too. But he was not yet cured of longing for that self-forbidden city in the North. He desired it--he desired the arid wilderness of its treeless streets, its incessant sounds, its restless energy; he desired its pleasures, its frivolous days and nights, its satiated security, its ennui. Its life had been his life, its people his people, and he longed for it with a desire that racked him.
"What the devil are you laughing at, Haltren?" asked the major, tartly.
"Was I laughing?" said the young man. "Well--now I will say good-bye, Major Brent. Your yacht will steam in before night and send a boat for you; and I shall have my lagoons to myself again.... I have been here a long time.... I don't know why I laughed just now. There was, indeed, no reason." He turned and looked at the cabin skylights. "It's hard to realize that you and Darrow and--others--are here, and that there's a whole yacht-load of fellow-creatures--and Mrs. Van Onderdonk--wobbling about the Atlantic near by. Fashionable people have never before come here--even intelligent people rarely penetrate this wilderness.... I--I have a plantation a few miles below--oranges and things, you know." He hesitated, almost wistfully. "I don't suppose you and your guests would care to stop there for a few hours, if your yacht is late."