Captain Stewart looked disappointed.

"Oh, I think--" said he. "Pardon me for saying it, but I think you're
rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I
comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed
quite on your own. But look at the practical side! You'll have to go
over all the weary weeks of useless labor we have gone over. We could
save you that. We have examined and followed up, and at last given over,
a hundred clews that on the surface looked quite possible of success.
You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you will
merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me a
pity. I sha'n't like to see you wasting your time and efforts."

He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and
he took it in his hand and turned it slowly and watched the light gleam
in strange pearl colors upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile
which the two younger men found oddly pathetic.

"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see
youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said: "I am past the age of
romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by,
but--I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in
other people--young people who are simple and earnest, and who--and who
are in love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hand. "I
am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly
sentimentalist is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not,
though, I have rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking.
Who knows? You may succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a
way of charging in and carrying all before it by assault--such a way of