Saltash was thoroughly cosmopolitan in his tastes; he liked amusement, but he abhorred boredom.  He declared that for him it was the root of all evil.  He was never really wicked unless he was bored.  And then—­que voulez-vous?  He did not guide the star of destiny.

“Yes,” he said, after a thoughtful silence, “we will certainly put to sea to-morrow—­unless—­” he turned his head and threw a merry grin at his companion—­“unless Fortune has any tricks up her sleeve for me, for I am going ashore for one more fling to-night.”

Larpent smoked on immovably, his blue-grey eyes staring out to the vivid sky-line, his sunburnt face quite imperturbable.

“We shall be ready to start as soon as you come aboard, my lord,” he said.

“Good!” said Saltash lightly.  “I may be late, or—­more probably—­very early.  Leave the gangway for me!  I’ll let you know when I’m aboard.”

He got up as if he moved on springs and leaned against the rail, looking down quizzically at the man who sat stolidly smoking in the deck-chair.  No two people could have formed a stronger contrast—­the yacht’s captain, fair-bearded, with the features of a Viking—­the yacht’s owner, dark, alert, with a certain French finesse about him that gave a strange charm to a personality that otherwise might have been merely fantastic.

Suddenly he laughed.  “Do you know, Larpent, I often think to myself what odd tricks Fate plays?  You for instance—­you, the captain of a private yacht when you ought to be roving the high seas in a Flying Dutchman!  You probably were a few generations ago.”

“Ah!” Larpent said, through a cloud of smoke.  “Life isn’t what it was.”

“It’s an infernal fraud, most of it,” said Saltash.  “Always promising and seldom fulfilling!”

“No good expecting too much,” said Larpent.

“True!” said Saltash.  “On the other hand it isn’t always wise to be too easily satisfied.”  His look became suddenly speculative.  “Have you ever been in love, Larpent?”

The big man in the deck-chair made a sharp movement and spilt some cigar-ash on his coat.  He sat up deliberately and brushed it off.  Saltash watched him with mischievous eyes.

“Well?” he said.

Larpent leaned back again, puffing forth a thick cloud of smoke.  “Once,” he said briefly.

“Only once?” gibed Saltash.  “Man alive!  Why, I’ve had the disease scores of times, and you are half a generation older than I am!”

“I know,” Larpent’s eyes dwelt unblinking upon the sparkling blue of the water beyond the rail.  “You’ve had it so often that you take it lightly.”

Saltash laughed.  “You apparently took it like the plague.”

“I didn’t die of it,” said Larpent grimly.

“Perhaps the lady did!” suggested Saltash.

“No.  She didn’t die either.”  Larpent’s eyes came slowly upwards to the mocking eyes above them.  “For all I know she may be living now,” he said.