Dan'l said sternly: "Roy, you'd best not see too much. It don't pay. There's times when it's wise to see little and say nothing. If it was me, I'd say this was one of the times." "That's all right," Roy admitted. "But I can talk to you...." He added suddenly: "Dan'l, Noll Wing is too old for Faith. She ought to have married you, Dan'l." Children have a disconcerting way of sticking a word like a knife into our secret hearts; they see so clearly, and they have not yet learned to pretend they do not see. Roy, for all his eighteen years, was still as much child as man; and Dan'l winced. "Land, Roy," he protested. "Get that out of your head. Faith and me understand...." Roy turned his back, looking aft. Dan'l glanced toward Slatter at the wheel. Slatter's back was toward them; but Dan'l could have sworn the man's ears were visibly pricking to miss no word. And Dan'l's eyes burned unpleasantly. A woman's strongest armor is her innocence. If Faith were tarnished in the eyes of the men in the fo'c's'le, she would have few defenders there.... The roughest man will honor a good woman; but he looks upon one who is soiled with contemptuous or greedy eyes. Dan'l was willing, for his own ends, that the fo'c's'le should think evil of Faith Wing. While they stood thus, Brander came on deck, and spoke for a minute with Dan'l, then went slowly forward. Because he and Dan'l clashed so sharply, Brander had fallen into the way of spending much time amidships with the harpooners, or forward with the crew.... Dan'l's place was aft.... Roy watched Brander now as he spoke to the mate, watched him walk away. When Brander was gone, Dan'l looked toward Roy. Roy said quietly: "Dan'l, if Brander tries to--to do anything to my sister, I'm going to kill him." Dan'l said nothing; and Roy moved abruptly past him and went below.... He was not seeking Faith; but he came upon her there, in the main cabin. She was at the table, with a book, and paper and pen; and he stopped to look over her shoulder, and saw that she was making calculations.... Latitude and longitude.... He asked: "What are you doing?" She looked up at him. "Studying navigation, Roy. Don't you want to?" He stared at her. "What are you doing it for?" "Because I want to. Besides.... It's a good thing to be able to find out where you are, on a world as big as this.... Don't you think?" He flung himself into a chair across from her. "Look here, Faith.... Why do you keep looking at Brander? All the time?" Faith was startled; she was startled not so much at what Roy said, as at what his words revealed to her. Nevertheless her voice was steady and quiet as she asked: "What do you mean, Roy?" "The way you look at Brander. He's not fit for you to talk to.... To look at.... Anything. He's not fit to be around you...." She laughed at him. "How do I look at Mr. Brander, Roy?" she asked. "Why--like...." Roy groped for words; Faith was suddenly afraid of what he might say. She interrupted him.