"Sometimes, but the subject does not interest me. A great, empty desolate waste of wet. No, why write poems of the sea when there are so many lovable things; old gardens and dear old people; little children and lovely women ... the last, always in the abstract." His amber eyes glowed. Wood stared at him keenly, but Applebo appeared oblivious. Wood rose to his feet. "It is almost two bells," said he, "I must be getting back. Sorry you will not come." "Thank you, dear boy. Please make all of my excuses. Tell them what you like ... only mention no names. Express my deep appreciation of their goodness, and thank them in my name for permitting me to rot around in their wake. Good-bye ... God bless you." In a very pensive mood Wood pulled back to the _Shark_, where his lack of success was received somewhat caustically by Cécile. But at the luncheon table Wood had his revenge. "It is just as I thought," said he. "Applebo's plea that he follows the _Shark_ about to save himself the wear and tear of deciding where to go is all a bluff." Had he been looking at Hermione as he made this statement, Wood might have seen something in her face to have given him food for thought. But he was looking at Cécile, not without a certain touch of malice. Since the coquette had rather cruelly thrown him over after having given him reason to believe that he was not indifferent to her, Wood had done a good deal of thinking, finally to arrive at the conclusion that all had happened for the best, and that a girl who could find it in her heart to do this sort of thing was not the girl that any man should want to marry. He no longer loved Cécile, and was therefore no longer blind to her faults. Conspicuous amongst these was a tremendous appreciation of her own charms, and Wood felt instinctively that, on learning of Applebo's confession, Cécile would immediately appropriate this devotion to herself. Wood bore no rancour for her treatment of himself, but he would scarcely have been human had he not found a certain cynical enjoyment in the situation. "I am not at liberty to mention any names," said he, "but when I directly accused him of being secretly in love with some lady aboard the _Shark_, Applebo acknowledged that this was the fact." Hermione's blue eyes opened very wide and a sudden rich colour flooded her face. Captain Bell and Wood were, however, looking at Cécile. Paula, the second sister, was lunching with friends ashore. Cécile's black, curving lashes swept down, and she looked at her plate and laughed, while a delicate colour tinged her soft cheeks. Secretly, she had suspected for a long time precisely what Wood had just stated, and the news brought to her that flush of triumph which attended every new and interesting conquest. Captain Bell surveyed his eldest daughter with disgust. "My word!" he snapped. "Has it come to a point where they follow her around in boats?"