"I'm trying not to be. But do you remember the night I told you both that the _Clara_ was going to Norfolk to take on her cargo? Well, he went out to get cigars, though he had a lot, and he let it slip that he had been talking on the long-distance telephone. When the _Clara_ is sunk, he is not surprised. He says, 'We--they have ways.' He prophesies the sinking of all the ships Mr. Davidge--" Abbie seized this name as a weapon of self-defense and mate-defense. "Oh, you're speakin' for Mr. Davidge now." "Perhaps. He's my employer, and Jake's, too. I feel under some obligations to him, even though Jake doesn't. I feel some obligations to the United States, and Jake doesn't. I distrust and abhor Germany, and Jake likes her as well as he does us. The background is perfect. When such crimes are being done as Germany keeps doing, condoning them is as bad as committing them." "Big words!" sniffed Abbie. "Can't you talk United States?" "All right, my dear. I say that since Jake is glad the _Clara_ was sunk and hopes that more ships will be sunk, he is as bad as the men that sank her. And what's more, I have made up my mind that Jake helped to sink her, and that he works in this yard simply for a chance to sink more ships. Do you get those words of one syllable?" "No," said Abbie. Ideas of one syllable are as hard to grasp as words of many. "I don't know what you're drivin' at a tall." "Poor Abbie!" sighed Mamise. "Dream on, if you want to. But I'm going to tell Mr. Davidge to keep a watch on Jake. I'm going to warn him that Jake is probably mixed up in the sinking of that beautiful ship he named after his mother." Even Abbie could not miss the frightful meaning of this. She was one of those who never trust experience, one of those who think that, in spite of all the horrible facts of the past, horrible things are impossible in the future. Higher types of the same mind had gone about saying that war was impossible, later insisting that it was impossible that the United States should be dragged into this war because it was so horrible, and next averring that since this war was so horrible there could never be another. Even Abbie could imagine what would happen if Mamise denounced Jake as an accomplice in the sinking of the Clara. It would be so terrible that it must be impossible. The proof that Jake was innocent was the thought of what would happen to him and to her and their children if he were found guilty. She summed it all up in a phrase: "Mamise, you're plumb crazy!" "I hope so, but I'm also crazy enough to put Mr. Davidge on his guard." "And have him fire Jake, or get him arrested?" "Perhaps." "Ain't you got any sense of decency or dooty a tall?" "I'm trying to find out." "Well, I always knew a woman who'd smoke cigarettes would do anything." "I'll do this." "O' course you won't; but if you did, I'd--why, I'd--why, I just don't know what I'd do." "Would you give up Jake?" "Give up Jake? Divorce him or something?"