"There is nowhere in the world," he said, "where a
woman is less wanted than on a ship. They interfere with happiness and
comfort in every way. If we had a woman on board tonight, she would be
deathly seasick or insanely frightened. A ship with a woman's name is
just as much as any captain can manage. You would be astonished at the
difference a name can make in a ship. When this yacht belonged to
Colonel Brotherton, she was called the _Dolphin_, and God and angels
know she tried to behave like one, diving and plunging and careering as
if she had fins instead of sails. I was captain of her then and I know
it. Well, your father bought her, and your mother threw a bottle of fine
old port over her bow, and called her the _Martha Hatton_, and she has
been a different ship ever since--ladylike and respectable, no more
butting of the waves, as if she was a ram; she lifts herself on and over
them and goes curtseying into harbor like a duchess."
As they talked the wind rose, and the play of its solemn music in the
rigging of the yacht and in the deep bass of the billows was, as Harry
said, "like a chant of High Mass.
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