The upshot of this meditation ultimately was the formation of the Blue Port Bivalve Company, Richard Hand, president; Horace Hollaby, vice-president and secretary; Richard Hand, treasurer. The company gradually obtained liens on most of the boats in which the men of Blue Port went forth to dredge the oyster beds. It acquired these beds. There were also free beds, belonging to the township, but as Richard Hand’s company came to own the boats it suffered less and less competition. Everything went on about as before; the only difference was that everybody came to be in debt to Richard Hand and worked for him. The only person in Blue Port who remained independent of him was Keturah Smiley. VI Mermaid, hurrying down the street from school, did not notice a boy coming out of the side street on which young Dick Hand lived. The boy was walking along with a most unboyish air. His head was down and he looked up too late to avoid a collision. It nearly knocked Mermaid’s breath out of her. When she could talk she accepted his confused apology, and smiled. “You’re Guy Vanton, aren’t you?” He was a short boy with very black hair, a snub nose, and a pale face. His eyes, which were brown, had something uncanny about them; Mermaid was struck with their resemblance to the eyes of wild animals. She had seen deer with eyes like that. The boy stood before her with his cap in his hand; he was somehow not in the least like Dick Hand or Tommy Lupton or any of the other Blue Port boys. He seemed to have very good manners and to be politely exercising them. Mermaid unconsciously assumed her own. “Guy Vanton, yes, _mademoiselle_.” The French word aroused Mermaid to a high pitch of curiosity, and the immediate effect of her heightened curiosity was to make her still more polite. “I--I beg your pardon,” the boy repeated. “It was all my fault. I was not looking where I was going, _mademoiselle_.” She noticed that he spoke English without the Blue Port twang, but also without a foreign accent; his speech was like that of one or two of the schoolteachers she had had. He seemed about to replace his cap and hurry away. He made a little bow to her--from the waist. Mermaid had seen the bow before. Dickie Hand had learned it in a children’s dancing class at Patchogue. She smiled at young Mr. Vanton, who was so eager to get along. She had no intention he should go until they were fairly acquainted. “You speak French?” “_Mais oui, mademoiselle!_” His uncanny eyes fixed her for a moment and his pale face flushed a little. “Oh, I don’t speak it,” Mermaid explained, hastily, whereupon he looked down at the ground, as if he had lost interest. “What was that you just said?” “I said: ‘But yes!’” “I wish I knew it,” she exclaimed. “I should love to study it, but I don’t think they teach it even in High School at Patchogue.” He said, without looking at her: “I learned it in Paris. I--we used to live there. My mother----” He stopped.