Mr. Korner, returning to the office, despatched to Ravenscourt Park an
express letter, announcing the strange news that he might not be home
that evening much before ten, and at half-past six, for the first time
since his marriage, directed his steps away from home and Mrs. Korner.

The two friends talked of many things. And later on they spoke of
sweethearts and of wives. Mate Damon's experiences had apparently
been wide and varied. They talked--or, rather, the mate talked, and
Mr. Korner listened--of the olive-tinted beauties of the Spanish Main,
of the dark-eyed passionate creoles, of the blond Junos of the
Californian valleys. The mate had theories concerning the care and
management of women: theories that, if the mate's word could be
relied upon, had stood the test of studied application. A new world
opened out to Mr. Korner; a world where lovely women worshipped with
doglike devotion men who, though loving them in return, knew how to be
their masters. Mr. Korner, warmed gradually from cold disapproval to
bubbling appreciation, sat entranced. Time alone set a limit to the
recital of the mate's adventures. At eleven o'clock the cook reminded
them that the captain and the pilot might be aboard at any moment.
Mr. Korner, surprised at the lateness of the hour, took a long and
tender farewell of his cousin, and found St. Katherine's Docks one of
the most bewildering places out of which he had ever tried to escape.
Under a lamp-post in the Minories, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Korner
that he was an unappreciated man. Mrs. Korner never said and did the
sort of things by means of which the beauties of the Southern Main
endeavoured feebly to express their consuming passion for gentlemen
superior in no way--as far as he could see--to Mr. Korner himself.
Thinking over the sort of things Mrs. Korner did say and did do, tears
sprung into Mr. Korner's eyes. Noticing that a policeman was eyeing
him with curiosity, he dashed them aside and hurried on. Pacing the