“Then, that will be your final answer, Miss Bostwick?” he said slowly, as Ida May played with her ice.

“Say!  I wouldn’t go down to that hole for a million,” scoffed the girl.  “I guess you wouldn’t stand it yourself, only you’re off on your ship most of the time.”

“I like the Cape,” he said briefly.

“Never lived in the city, did you?”

“I never did.”

“Then you don’t know any better,” she told him confidently.  “And you don’t really look like such a dead one, at that.”

“Thank you.”

She smiled saucily into his rather grim face.  Then she opened her bag and deliberately powdered her nose before rising from the table.

“Thanks for a pleasant hour,” she drawled.  “You tell Auntie and Uncle Josh to get a girl from the poor farm or somewhere to do their chores and tuck ’em in nights. Me, I don’t mean to live out of sight of movie signs and electric lights.  I’d like to see myself!”

She was both rude and common.  Tunis was glad to get out of the dining room.  Ida May attracted altogether too much attention.  And she had quite openly eyed his well-lined wallet when he paid the waiter.  To a girl like Ida May, all was fish that swam into her net.  Crude as she considered him, Tunis Latham was a man with some money.  And he evidently knew how to spend it.

“When you’re in town I’d be glad to see you any time, Mr. Latham.  Or do I say captain?”

She smiled up at the big, broad-shouldered fellow bravely as she trotted along in the skirt that made her hobble like a cripple.  The captain of the Seamew did not respond very cordially, and quite overlooked her personal question.

“I don’t expect to spend much time in Boston,” he said.  “Thank you.  Then I shall report to Aunt Prue and Cap’n Ira that you will not consider their offer at all?”

“I should say not!” She laughed lightly.  “You don’t know, I guess, what we girls expect nowadays, if we give up our independence.”

“Independence!” snorted Tunis.

“That’s what I said,” rejoined Ida May tartly.  “When the store closes my time’s my own.  I can do as I please.  And I’ve got nobody to please but myself.  Oh, you don’t understand at all, Captain Latham!”

He said no more.  Nor did he escort her farther than the corner.  There he lifted his cap and took her offered hand.  Although it was beringed and the nails were stained and polished, Tunis could not help noticing that Ida May’s hand was not altogether clean.

“Well, au revoir, captain!” she said lightly.  “I hope I see you again.”

He bowed silently and watched her depart.  The sunshine glinted gloriously upon her fluffy hair.

“Fool’s gold,” he muttered.

CHAPTER VII

AT THE RESTAURANT

The captain of the Seamew found himself facing an unpleasant problem.  How could he make the Balls, either Cap’n Ira or Prudence, understand the kind of girl Ida May was?  How could he even bring them to understand that nothing he could have said would have ever made Ida May Bostwick see the situation in its true light?