"You understand," Mr. Dainopoulos had said in the course of this conversation, "I'm doing this for my wife. My wife likes this young lady very much. Another thing, the young lady's mother, she's married again. Man with plenty of money. I do his business for him here."
Captain Rannie looked hard at a crack in the linoleum near his foot.
"I'm sure it doesn't make the slightest difference to me. I know nothing about it, nothing at all. My chief officer was going to say something to me this morning and I shut him up at once. I knew perfectly well from the very first there was something like this in the wind and I made up my mind to have nothing at all to do with it. As master of the vessel it's impossible ... you can quite understand ... eh?"
"That's all right," replied Mr. Dainopoulos, looking at his open palm. "No passport. Once you get outside, no matter. The young lady, she give me a paper. She loves my wife. She gives everything she may have to my wife."
"Which isn't much, according to what you told me before. You grumbled to me, and said in so many words she cost you a lot of money to keep for a companion to your wife."
Mr. Dainopoulos stared hard at his captain's sneering face.
"That was before her mother got married again. Miss Solaris, she tell me her mother want somebody to look after the farms, by and by."
"I don't want to hear anything about it," burst out Captain Rannie, turning round in his chair so that he could hear better.
"And she say, she say," went on Mr. Dainopoulos steadily, "her mother perhaps, you understand, some women have one, two, three, four husband, you see? Well, her mother want a good man of business. So Miss Solaris she sign a paper for me. She give everything to my wife."
"Everything! Which is nothing, I've no doubt."
"Ah-h! Not nothing. I sell his tobacco now, and it's not nothing, I can tell you. No! By and by, Miss Solaris, now her mother marry again, will be rich. But she's crazy about that feller I told you she had here."
"I don't remember anything about it. I make it a rule to have nothing to do with passengers. I expect no less," announced Captain Rannie, alert to hear every word.
"Well, if a woman wants a man, she gets him," observed Mr. Dainopoulos gravely.
