Flora, full of her new theme, went straight to her brother about it that very evening. “Oh, Chris—such an interesting impresario—clear around the world in a schooner: the Skimming Duckie, or something like that—quite daring and original”—it was just a little breathless and sketchy at first. But her brother bantered, in his freezing way: “You make it all crystal clear, Flora. A schooner?” And then he shouted. He did not laugh, he shouted. It was a little uncouth; but the[50] Captain liked to be a little uncouth sometimes. It helped him with the sea captain atmosphere, which, after all, as has been suggested, wasn’t quite a native emanation. Utterbourne had perhaps out of sheer perversity taken to the sea, and made a success of it; yet he had a meditative, quizzical trend of mind, and leaned a little to hesitancies, a great deal to analysis. He was an enigma of the first water; yet to those who knew him best it sometimes seemed as though he possessed the heart of a mystic—almost of a poet.  
“Oh, well,” was the upshot of the talk, “if you like. I’m busy—h’m? But tell him to phone in for an appointment.” The tone was one of cold generosity, which never failed more or less to frighten the listener—a stab of formality that not even his own sister could hope to escape.
 
But she didn’t mind in the least, even though she may have been a little frightened. She just arched her fine brows gratefully and said: “Thank you so much, Chris! You’ll never regret it, I know, and he’s really quite celebrated, in a way—though I presume the ‘world tour’ will add a great deal to his fame!” And her hand rested a moment upon her brother’s responseless arm.
 
Well, in no time at all the excited impresario was phoning for an appointment. Then he called at the smoky offices of the Hyde Packet company, which he brightened enormously with his glowing, optimistic enthusiasm. Utterbourne, from the first, of course, looked upon Flora’s new friend as a figure of comedy; nevertheless it only showed a little in the quivering of his lips; and he knew of a skipper, he said—a Captain Bearman—who might be prevailed upon to take hold, in case he happened to be without a ship just now.
 
Luck was kind. Captain Bearman was very much without a ship, and, in his own rather acid fashion, seized almost avidly upon the opportunity at hand. His fashion, it developed, was full of snarls and shrouded in a rind of perpetual crustiness. But he was an authentic sea captain, notwithstanding, and the impresario rejoiced over him ardently.
 
[51]
 
A little dinner was arranged at the Pavillon d’Orient—an Armenian resort famous for its skewered meats and imported cheeses. Utterbourne actually came himself, and brought Bearman along; while, out of the warm abundance of his generosity the impresario invited a certain young clerk of his acquaintance. (“He’s got such a shut-in, humdrum look.”) And there was champagne, which more or less went to the clerk’s head, and made him feel, for the time-being, a person of considerable consequence.
 
Naturally Utterbourne talked of everything under the sun except the subject that had brought them together. He spoke poisingly of fate and art and habit and flayed immortality within an inch of its life and said “H’m?” a great many times and hummed To a Wild Rose. And when, later on, Curry referred to ............