"It might be that," he admitted; "if it weren't for the facts that it's a house and library, and I'm an old man, and you're not at all like the second mate." "I should hope not," she replied decidedly. "A second mate isn't anything, and I am a--a young lady anyhow." "You'll soon be out at dances." "I go to parties now; that is, mother let me stay at the Coggswells' on Thursday until the men came at nine for sangaree. And I'm at all the Ballad Soirees." He made a gesture of pretended surprise and admiration. "I don't suppose they ever have a good chantey with the stuff they play?" he queried. "Dear me, no. Mr. Dempster sings The Indian's Lament, and The May Queen: that's a cantata and it's in three parts." Jeremy began to hum, and in a moment was intoning in a loud monotonous voice, sweeping a hand up and down: _"To my hero, Bangedero, Singing hey for a gay Hash girl."_ "I don't think that's very nice," she said primly. "What do you mean--not very nice?" he demanded, incensed. "There's nothing finer with a rousing chanteyman leading it and the watch hauling on the braces. You'd never hear the like at any Ballad Soiree. And: _"Sweet William, he married a wife, 'Gentle Jenny,' cried Rose Marie, To be the sweet comfort of his life, As the dew flies over the mulberry tree."_ "There isn't much sense to it," she observed. For a little, indignant at her disparagement of such noble fragments, he tramped silently back and forth, followed by a cloud of smoke from the cheroot. No one on land could understand the absorbing significance of every detail of a ship's life.... Only Gerrit, of all his family, knew the chanteys and watches, the anxiety and beauty of landfalls--the blue Falklands or Teneriffe rising above the clouds, the hurried making and taking of sail in the squalls of the Doldrums. "In India," he told her, stopping in his measured course, "female children are given to the crocodiles." Her mouth parted at this, her eyes became dilated, and she slipped from the chair. "That's perfectly awfully appalling," she breathed. "The little brown girl babies. Oh, father," she cried, as William Ammidon came into the library, "what do you suppose grandfather says, that in India female children are...crocodiles." Words failed her. "What's the sense in frightening the child, father?" William remonstrated. "I wish you would keep those horrors for the old heathen of the Marine Society." Jeremy had a lively sense of guilt; he had been betrayed by Camilla's confounded airs and pretensions. He ought to be ashamed of himself, telling the girl such things. "The British Government is putting a stop to that," he added hastily, "and to suttees--" "What are they?" she inquired. "Never mind, Camilla," her father interposed; "go up with your mother and sisters. "I suppose it's no good speaking to you," William continued; "but my family is not a crew and this house isn't the _Two Capes_. You might make some effort to realize you're on land."