“I can get him aboard all right.  A sea voyage under sail will be the making of him.”

“Let’s toddle over to the Victoria at once.  I’ll do anything in reason for you, old top; but no pig in a poke.  Enschede’s daughter.  Things happen out this way.  That’s a queer yarn.”

“It’s a queer girl.”

“With a face as square and flat as a bottle of gin.  I know the Dutch.”  He sent the doctor a sly glance.

“She’s the most beautiful creature you ever set eyes on,” said the doctor, warmly.  “That’s the whole difficulty.  I want her to get forward, to set her among people who’ll understand what to do with her.”

“Ship her back to her father”—­sagely.

“No.  I tell you, that girl would jump into the sea, rather.  Something happened down there, and probably I’ll never know what.  Every time you mention the father, she turns into marble.  No; she’d never go back.  Mac, she’s the honestest human being I ever saw or heard of; and at the same time she is velvet over steel.  And yet, she would be easy prey in her present state of mind to any plausible, attractive scoundrel.  That’s why I’m so anxious to get her to a haven.”

“Come along, then.  You’ve got me interested and curious.  If you were ten years younger, you’d have me wondering.”

The doctor did not reply to this rather ambiguous statement, but pushed back his chair and signed to McClintock to follow.  They found Ruth reading to Spurlock, whose shoulders and head were propped by pillows.

McClintock did not exaggerate his ability to read faces.  It was his particular hobby, and the leisure he had to apply to it had given him a remarkable appraising eye.  Within ten minutes he had read much more than had greeted his eye.  A wave of pity went over him—­pity for the patient, the girl, and his friend.  The poor old imbecile!  Why, this child was a firebrand, a wrecker, if ever he had seen one; and the worst kind because she was unconscious of her gifts.

As for the patient, his decision was immediate.  Here was no crooked soul; a little weak perhaps, impulsive beyond common, but fundamentally honest.  Given time and the right environment, and he would outgrow these defects.  Confidence in himself would strengthen him.  If the boy had done anything wrong back there in the States, his would be the brand of conscience to pay him out in full.  With a little more meat on him, he would be handsome.

“My friend here,” said McClintock, “tells me you are looking for a job.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve a job open; but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea of it.  In the first place, it will be damnably dull.  You won’t often see white folks.  There will be long stretches of idleness, heat, and enervation; and always the odour of drying coconut.  A good deal of the food will be in tins.  You’ll live to hate chicken; and the man in you will rise up and demand strong drink.  But nobody drinks on my island unless I offer it, which is seldom.  If there is any drinking, I’ll do it.”