The Silver Menace Murray Leinster [Transcriber's Note: This etext produced from The Thrill Book, September 1, 1919 and September 15, 1919] The yacht was plowing through the calm waters with a steady throbbing of the engines. The soft washing of the waves along the sides, the murmur of the wind through the light rigging aloft, and the occasional light footstep of the navigating officer on the bridge were the only sounds. The long white vessel swept on through the night in silence. Here and there a light showed from some port-hole or window, but for the most part the whole boat was dark and silent. For once the yacht contained no merry party of guests to one-step on the wide decks and fill all the obscurer corners with accurately paired couples. Alexander Morrison, millionaire steamship magnate, and his daughter Nita had the ship to themselves. They were sitting in two of the big wicker chairs on the after deck, and the glow of Morrison's cigar was the only light. "Getting chilly, Nita," he remarked casually. "Are you warm enough?" "Yes, indeed." Nita was silent for a moment, gazing off into the darkness. "It's nice," she said reflectively, "to be by one's self for a while. I'm glad you didn't invite a lot of people to come back with us." Her father smiled. "Judging by the way you behaved along the Riviera," he reminded her, "you didn't mind company. I never saw any one quite so run after as you were." Nita shook her head. "They were running after you, daddy," she said lightly. "I was just a means of approach." Her father puffed on his cigar for a moment in silence. "It is a disadvantage, having a millionaire for a father," he admitted. "It's hard to tell who is in love with you, and who is in love with your father's money." "So the thing to do, I suppose," said Nita amusedly, "is just to fall in love with some one yourself, and pay no attention to his motives." "Where do you get your notions?" asked her father. "That's cynicism. You haven't been practicing on that theory, have you?" "Not I," said Nita with a little silvery laugh. "But you know, daddy, it isn't nice to feel like a money bag with a lot of people looking at you all the time, some of them enviously and some of them covetously, but none of them regarding you just like a human being." "I don't see," declared her father, with real affection, "how any normal young man who looked at you could stop thinking about you long enough to think about your money." "I rise and bow," said Nita mischievously. "May I return the compliment, substituting 'young woman' for 'young man'?" "Don't try to fool your father," that gentleman said with a smile. He added with something of conscious pride: "I don't suppose there are two other men in America as homely as I am." "Daddy!" protested Nita, laughing. "You're lovely to look at! I wouldn't have you look a bit different for worlds."