Part 46 (1/2)

”Quite, thank you, sir,” answered Dean, and went off buoyantly.

In the afternoon Olaf was sailing his yacht on deck on the new set of wheels made for him by the s.h.i.+p's carpenter, while his father sat stretched in a long deck-chair watching him tenderly and weaving dreams for his future. The thought crossed his mind--not for the first time--whether it wouldn't be advisable to get a stepmother for the boy.

Larssen had a strong intuitive feeling that he would not live to old age, and he wanted to know that the boy would have someone to care for him and to stand behind him while he was seating himself firmly on his father's throne.

Specifically, the s.h.i.+powner was reviewing Olive as a possible stepmother. There was no sc.r.a.p of pa.s.sion in his thoughts. He was viewing the matter as a business proposition, weighing the pros and cons calmly and cool-bloodedly. Would Olive be the right stepmother for the boy? She was of good family, with influential connections. She made a fine presence as a hostess. Her ambition was undoubted. Even the trifling point of the similarity between Olive's name and that of his boy impressed him, by some curious twist of mind, as favourable.

”Dad, look at me!” called out Olaf. ”I've made some buoys, and now I'm going to sail her round a racing course.”

He had run needles through three corks, and planted them in the pitch-seams of the deck to form the three points of a large triangle, in imitation of the buoys of a yacht-race course.

”This buoy is Sandy Hook, and this one is the Fastnet, and that one over there is Gibraltar.”

”Good!” said the s.h.i.+powner. ”I'll time the race.” He took out his watch.

”Are you ready?... Go!”

When the course was completed and the yacht lay at anchor again at Sandy Hook, Larssen called his son to the seat at his side.

”Do you remember much of your mother?” he asked.

The boy's face clouded over. ”I don't know. Sometimes I seem to see her very plainly, and sometimes again I don't seem to see her at all when I try to. Was mother very beautiful?”

”Very beautiful, to me,” a.s.sented the s.h.i.+powner.

”I think I should have loved her very much.”

”How would you like to have a new mother?”

Olaf thought this over in silence for some time.

”It depends,” he ventured at length.

”Depends on what?”

”I don't know. I must see her. Then I could tell you.”

”You care for the idea?”

”I must see her first.”

”Yes, that's right. Well, Sonny, as soon as we're in London I'll take you to see her. But remember this: don't breathe a word of it to anyone.

Keep a tight mouth. That's what a business man has always got to learn.”

”Why?”

”Because silence in the right place means big money.”

Olaf reflected over the new problem for some time.