"I am sorry," said Madame, and for the last time she turned her back upon him. She was never a patient woman, but I think sometimes that she might have commanded a little more patience had she chosen. Willie was, after all, a boy, a boy of nineteen, puffed up and exalted by his new uncomprehended dignities. She, a woman of the world, a woman of nearly twice his age, might have dealt more gently with his boyish follies. I think that she would have acted differently had she ever borne a son of her own. She would not then have been so resentful of the snub of a silly youth.
Captain Ching, sensible that a far better pilot was watching every movement of the vessel, was taking no risks. In his cautious navigation there was nothing of the splendid free-hand verve of Willatopy. With the tide flowing under him he was content with eight knots of speed, and the Chief Engineer down below, watching the slow response of the foul-bottomed yacht to the revolutions of the propellers, gave thanks for his superior's moderation. They toddled along at a "vairy economical consumption," they kept rigidly to the deepest of channels, there was none of that spirited corner cutting so characteristic of the confident Willatopy, the performance was altogether lacking in flair, but it was safe and sound. Ching made no mistakes, and as Willie watched the course he learned yet another lesson--that no man in this world is indispensable. He had expected appeals for assistance, and might perhaps have consented to abate the dignity of his lordship, had Madame and Ching been reduced by necessity to a gratifying condition of grovelling humility. But of that there was no sign. The Skipper serenely conned the yacht from his own bridge, Madame had disappeared into the smoke-room, the sailors moved about upon their lawful occasions, the lordly passenger was wholly neglected. And above all other evidences of indifference to his feelings, the _Humming Top_ proceeded steadily upon her way, and never came near to a bump on the reefs.
Presently Willie got up and went sullenly below. He had been allotted a handsome stateroom with bath and dressing-room attached on the main deck--it was on the starboard side opposite Madame's quarters--and thither he went and sulked by himself. I am afraid that he was not happy, and perhaps began to grasp some little inkling of the great truth that no man is happy unless he fills the place and does the job for which he is fitted. On the bridge in charge of the yacht he would have grinned joyously--the round man in the round hole which he perfectly fitted; here in a modern luxurious cabin, the boy, who had spent his life in a palm-thatched hut, or in a 30-foot yawl, was ill-placed and miserable.