fo'c'sle with dainty awe. Everything was a source of merriment, from
our cramped attitudes to the painful deficiency of spoons and the
'yachtiness' (there is no other word to describe it) of the bread,
which had been bought at Bensersiel, and had suffered from
incarceration and the climate. This fact came out, and led to some
questions, while we waited for the water to boil, about the gale and
our visit there. The topic, a pregnant one for us, appeared to have
no special significance to her. At the mention of von Brüning she
showed no emotion of any sort; on the contrary, she went out of her
way, from an innocent motive that anyone could have guessed, to show
that she could talk about him with dispassionate detachment.

'He came to see us when you were here last, didn't he?' she said to
Davies. 'He often comes. He goes with father to Memmert sometimes.
You know about Memmert? They are diving for money out of an old
wreck.'

Yes, we had heard about it.

'Of course you have. Father is a director of the company, and
Commander von Brüning takes great interest in it; they took me down
in a diving-bell once.'

I murmured, 'Indeed!' and Davies sawed laboriously at the bread. She
must have misconstrued our sheepish silence, for she stopped and drew
herself up with just a touch of momentary hauteur, utterly lost on
Davies. I could have laughed aloud at this transient little comedy of
errors.

'Did you see any gold?' said Davies at last, with husky solemnity.