“You mustn’t betray the company’s secrets,” I said, laughing; “Commander von Brüning 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 naïve 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 Fräulein 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.
“How did you know?” (a little maidenly confusion). “Oh, Commander von Brüning.”
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 Schwannallée—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 regularise the present position.
“We shall be at Norderney to-morrow,” he said.
Meanwhile the kettle was boiling merrily, and I made the tea—cocoa, I should say, for the menu was changed in deference to our visitor’s tastes. “This _is_ fun!” she said. And by common consent we abandoned ourselves, three youthful, hungry mariners, to the enjoyment of this impromptu picnic. Such a chance might never occur again—_carpamus diem._