Emily by now was conducting, in her head, a secret conversation with John. She had never done so before: but to-day he had suddenly presented himself to her imagination. Of course his disappearance was strictly taboo between them: what they chiefly discussed was the building of a magnificent raft, to use in the bathing-hole at Ferndale; just as if they had never left the place. When she heard the captain’s step, so nearly surprising her at it, she blushed a deep red. She felt her cheeks still hot when he arrived. As usual, he did not even glance at her. He plumped down on a seat, put his elbows on the cabin table, his head in his hands, and rocked it rhythmically from side to side. ‘Look, Captain!’ she insisted. ‘Do I look pretty like this? Look! _Look!_ Look, _do_ I look pretty like this?’ For once he raised his head, turned, and considered her at length. She had rolled up her eyes till only the whites showed, and turned her under lip inside out. With her first finger she was squashing her nose almost level with her cheeks. ‘No,’ he said simply, ‘you do not.’ Then he returned to his cogitation. She stuck out her tongue as well, and waggled it. ‘Look!’ she went on, ‘Look!’ But instead of looking at her, he let his eye wander round the cabin. It seemed changed somehow--emasculated: a little girl’s bedroom, not a man’s cabin. The actual physical changes were tiny: but to a meticulous man they glared. The whole place smelt of children. Unable to contain himself, he crammed on his cap and burst up the stairs. On deck, the others were romping round the binnacle, wildly excited. ‘_Damn!_’ cried Jonsen at the sight of them, stamping in an ungovernable rage. Of course his slippers came off, and one of them skiddered up the deck. What devil entered into Edward I do not know: but the sight was too much for him. He seized the slipper and rushed off with it, shrieking with delight. Jonsen roared at him: he passed it to Laura, and was soon dancing up and down at the end of the jib-boom. Edward, of all people! The timid, respectful Edward! Laura could hardly carry the enormous thing: but she clasped it tight in her arms, lowered her head, and with the purposeful air of a rugger-player ran back with it very fast up the deck, apparently straight into Jonsen’s arms. At the last moment she dodged him neatly: continued right on past Otto at the wheel, just as serious and just as fast, and forward again on the port-side. Jonsen, no quick mover at any time, stood in his socks and roared himself hoarse. Otto was shaking with laughter like a jelly. This mad intoxication, which had flashed from child to child, now dropped a spark into the crew. They were already peering excitedly from the fo’c’sle hatch, grins struggling with outrage for pride of place: but at this point they broke into a cheer. Then, like the devils in a pantomime, they all sank together through the floor, aghast at themselves, and pulled the scuttle over their heads.