He came up, sat down, and blew out his cheeks, looking inexpressibly fatuous.  But I didn’t want to laugh any more.  And what on earth, I asked myself, have we been laughing at in this uncontrollable fashion.  I felt suddenly depressed.

Oh, yes.  Freya had started it.  The girl’s overwrought, I thought.  And really one couldn’t wonder at it.

I had no answer to old Nelson’s question, but he was too aggrieved at Jasper’s visit to think of anything else.  He as good as asked me whether I wouldn’t undertake to hint to Jasper that he was not wanted at the Seven Isles group.  I declared that it was not necessary.  From certain circumstances which had come to my knowledge lately, I had reason to think that he would not be much troubled by Jasper Allen in the future.

He emitted an earnest “Thank God!” which nearly set me laughing again, but he did not brighten up proportionately.  It seemed Heemskirk had taken special pains to make himself disagreeable.  The lieutenant had frightened old Nelson very much by expressing a sinister wonder at the Government permitting a white man to settle down in that part at all.  “It is against our declared policy,” he had remarked.  He had also charged him with being in reality no better than an Englishman.  He had even tried to pick a quarrel with him for not learning to speak Dutch.

“I told him I was too old to learn now,” sighed out old Nelson (or Nielsen) dismally.  “He said I ought to have learned Dutch long before.  I had been making my living in Dutch dependencies.  It was disgraceful of me not to speak Dutch, he said.  He was as savage with me as if I had been a Chinaman.”

It was plain he had been viciously badgered.  He did not mention how many bottles of his best claret he had offered up on the altar of conciliation.  It must have been a generous libation.  But old Nelson (or Nielsen) was really hospitable.  He didn’t mind that; and I only regretted that this virtue should be lavished on the lieutenant-commander of the Neptun.  I longed to tell him that in all probability he would be relieved from Heemskirk’s visitations also.  I did not do so only from the fear (absurd, I admit) of arousing some sort of suspicion in his mind.  As if with this guileless comedy father such a thing were possible!

Strangely enough, the last words on the subject of Heemskirk were spoken by Freya, and in that very sense.  The lieutenant was turning up persistently in old Nelson’s conversation at dinner.  At last I muttered a half audible “Damn the lieutenant.”  I could see that the girl was getting exasperated, too.

“And he wasn’t well at all—­was he, Freya?” old Nelson went on moaning.  “Perhaps it was that which made him so snappish, hey, Freya?  He looked very bad when he left us so suddenly.  His liver must be in a bad state, too.”

“Oh, he will end by getting over it,” said Freya impatiently.  “And do leave off worrying about him, papa.  Very likely you won’t see much of him for a long time to come.”