Beverly followed my glance to where the gay company was sitting among the cracked ice, and bottles, and cigar boxes, chattering volubly, with its back to the scenery. He gave his laisser-faire chuckle, and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry ‘em with forts and islands, old boy! They know what they want. No living breed on earth knows better what it wants.” “Well, they don’t get it.” “Ho, don’t they?” “The cold fear of ennui gnaws at their vitals this minute.” Shrill laughter from Kitty and Gazza served to refute my theory. “Of course, very few know what’s the matter with them,” I added. “You seldom spot an organic disease at the start.” “Hm,” said Beverly, lengthily. “You put a pin through some of ‘em. Hortense hasn’t got the disease, though.” “Ah, she spotted it! She’s taking treatment. It’s likely to help her--for a time.” He looked at me. “You know something.” I nodded. He looked at Hortense, who was now seated among the noisy group with quiet John beside her. She was talking to Bohm, she had no air of any special relation to John, but there was a lustre about her that spoke well for the treatment. “Then it’s coming off?” said Beverly. “She has been too much for him,” I answered. Beverly misunderstood. “He doesn’t look it.” “That’s what I mean.” “But the fool can cut loose!” “Oh, you and I have gone over all that! I’ve even gone over it with him.” Beverly looked at Hortense again. “And her fire-eater’s fortune is about double what it would have been. I don’t see how she’s going to square herself with Charley.” “She’ll wait till that’s necessary. It isn’t necessary to-day.” We had to drop our subject here, for the owner of the Hermana approached us with the amiable purpose, I found, of making himself civil for a while to me. “I think you would have been interested to see the navy yard,” I said to him. “I have seen it,” Charley replied, in his slightly foreign, careful voice. “It is not a navy yard. It is small politics and a big swamp. I was not interested.” “Dear me!” I cried. “But surely it’s going to be very fine!” “Another gold brick sold to Uncle Sam.” Charley’s words seemed always to drop out like little accurately measured coins from some minting machine. “They should not have changed from the old place if they wanted a harbor that could be used in war-time. Here they must always keep at least one dredge going out at the jetties. So the enemy blows up your dredge and you are bottled in, or bottled out. It is very simple for the enemy. And, for Kings Port, navy yards do not galvanize dead trade. It was a gold brick. You have not been on the Hermana before?”