"Not so far from what Reuben said. We were speaking of Jan's death, and Reuben said--blurted it, not his natural way at all, and I could see it cost him pain--Ru said: 'Ha'n't they even questioned him?' I was obliged to ask whom he meant. He said: 'Shawn, that devil Shawn.' He said: 'Will they not ask him concerning ends and means? Will they not ask him how far he would go to secure a vessel so to be another Francis Drake?' Well, I--I chided him, Kate--it shocked me, not only because he lacks a man's years. He apologized and said no more. But then today, it so happened another man applied--Will Hanson, New Haven man, a good sailor that Jenks knew from years past. Jenks wished to sign him on. I had meant to suggest Mr. Shawn, but I remembered what Reuben said and held my peace, and so--so Hanson will be mate when she sails tomorrow.... I'm getting old--fret and fume over decisions I'd've made a few years ago with a snap of the fingers--and been right too. Usually. Oh, my foot! God damn that bloody thing!" "Lie still. You know it alway stops hurting if you lie still." "Ah, you're kind." "Why, John, you're mine in the sight of God. And you not even able to believe!--well, there, I made my peace with that too, long ago, for a'n't it what makes the world go 'round, a'n't I alway said so? Nay, love, never mind how I chatter. Try now if you can't get some sleep." _Chapter Seven_ If the present alone is real, one might as well eat the damn' porridge. On Tuesday morning Reuben did so, admitting at once that the porridge was good as always, that the fault lay with his own jumpy stomach, his sandy-eyed weariness from a bad night. Ben also seemed depressed, or at least without the glow and buoyancy he had shown since his last return from Boston. Reuben had intended to offer a few not too classical flights concerning Aphrodite Anadyomene the sea-born, partly in the hope of learning whether love totally obliterated the sense of humor. He left them unsaid. It might be abstraction, not depression, that ailed Ben. Experimentally, while his brother gazed moodily out the window, Reuben stole a sliver of bacon from his trencher; Ben never noticed. When Reuben replaced it, Ben did observe the action, vaguely startled, smiling and saying: "Thanks." "Well, damn," said Reuben. Kate had watched the operation--vacantly and without chuckling. "Uh? A'n't you hungry, Ru?" "Damn again," said Reuben. "I am alway hungry. I own a tapeworm of the soul." He recaptured the bacon and popped it in his mouth. Ben was still merely looking puzzled. "'Twould appear that this morning I am penned up with mooncalves--even Kate won't laugh. And yet it's a fair day, a red sky last night." Kate turned her back with odd abruptness. And in his own dark privacy, it seemed to Reuben that he was like one who can behold the gathering of the crimson banners for Armageddon where others see only a flaming translation of natural clouds.