"Humph!" What crystalline honesty was in his answers, she pondered. They were as prompt as a mirror's. "Rivals," she remarked, "don't ordinarily show plans." "Your father and I are not ordinary rivals." What did that mean? Her, and not mere boats' plans? She did not look at him this time. Like "California" she could see without looking. "Think I'll rejoin the Gilmores," she sighed, as certain couples came up to see the _Antelope_ go by. She feared a recurrence of "'Lindy Lowe." On the way to the pilot-house she leisurely inquired: "Do you think you'll ever build a finer boat than this?" "Yes, and larger, and faster." "Not this season?" "No, I should hope not for many. Yet----" "Boats' lives," she prompted, "are so uncertain." "Yes, grandfather thinks----" "Oh, if only he were here!" She paused to let Hugh notice that she had "were" and "was" in hand at last. Then: "How long will that boat be?" "Three hundred and thirty feet. She'll have ten boilers. Her cylinders will be forty-three inches, her stroke eleven feet. She'll carry eighty-five hundred bales of cotton." "Goodness! How wide will she be?" "In the beam fifty. Over all, at the wheelhouses, ninety. Her wheels will be forty-five feet in diameter and their buckets nineteen feet span. You still like figures, boats' figures, I hope?" She still liked, for second choice, to make him, to herself, ridiculous; liked it even now while inwardly laughing and weeping at him for not coming to personal matters infinitely more important. "Go on," she said, "I like cabin figures. How long, wide, and high will the cabin be?" "Two hundred and sixty-three by nineteen by sixteen." "What'll her name be? Another e-double-s, of course?" "No, I've just been telling your father--here comes the _Antelope_. I was telling him that grandfather----" An overhead roar of reply to the signal of the approaching boat drowned all words, but Ramsey had learned on coming aboard that the grandfather was still sound though beyond four score, and her one vivid wish now was to know more not of him but of Hugh and her father. Yet she had to let Hugh hand her up the pilot-house stair, and without him rejoined the Gilmores while Watson spoke down to the man in the captain's chair as to the light-draught _Antelope_ having come up through the chute of Island So-and-so. She was just in time to accept her share in the splendor and gayety of the two boats' meeting and passing. As the picture dissolved, Mrs. Gilmore slyly pinched Ramsey's finger while asking Watson: "Why don't our men sing? _I_ want some more 'Lindy!"