The harbor was wide bright silver, tarnished where the wind made catspaws. One tug steamed seaward, cutting into the wind with a white rustle of foam about a bluff, grimy bow, dragging long coils of brown smoke. They were standing beside some piles at the end of the wharf. "I have my chance now," said Wenny. "The bust-up was complete this time." "How do you mean?" Fanshaw and Nan said in unison. "My chance to go to sea ... I've broken off relations ... with my relations ... Bad pun, isn't it?" "You mean you had a row with them?" said Fanshaw. "I can understand that. Poor mother and I nearly came to blows.... It's the holiday spirit. Christmas is a dreadful time. Don't you think so, Nan?" "I like Christmas," said Wenny. "But Wenny, you said complete." Nan put a hand on his arm. "I mean it. I shall never have anything to do with them again... I never have rows." "But what on earth happened?" Nan's voice was very gentle. "Absolutely nothing. My father and I had a little chat about life and eternity. How silly, I'm getting all worked up talking about it. O, I suppose I'd better tell you to get it off my system. It's not a bit important. I laid on for life and he laid on for eternity ... Naturally, being a clergyman eternity is his line of goods. We got sore. I'm never going to take anything more from him, either his money or his insolence." "But how are you going to live?" cried Fanshaw. "What the hell? I've got as much muscle as the next man." "But you're so impractical, Wenny." "It must have been more than that. How did it start?" said Nan, tapping with her patent leather toe at a loose board. "It started ..." There was a catch in Wenny's voice. Then gruffly: "He said something unpleasant about a snapshot I had on my desk. It's too ridiculous." "But you'll have to give up your M. A.," went on Fanshaw. "Damn good thing, too. I was just hanging round the Anthropology department in the hope of getting in on an expedition to South America." And Wenny owes me a hundred dollars, the thought crept unexpectedly into Fanshaw's mind. Never get it now. "But Wenny," Nan was pleading, "I think you are probably exaggerating the importance of the whole thing. I don't see that it's necessary to get on your high horse like that."