Page:Sunset Magazine vol. 31.pdf/106



Once, sitting in his deck chair, he glanced up, to find her looking at him with an absent, half-effaced Smile on her lips

almost ineffable sadness that told of years lived only in the memory of some past. Between him and her not a single word was spoken; but once, sitting in his deck chair, he glanced up from a year-old magazine to find her looking at him with an absent,

“You see, old Crownshield was first a

sea-captain in the China trade, then an owner, and finally he married and tried to

settle down.

half-effaced smile on her lips. Curiosity was not likely long to remain unappeased in the vicinity of Sam H. Danby but it was on the third and last evening of the short voyage that he sat in the smoke room company and delivered himself. “Yes, the old lady hasn't had what you might properly call a happy life. She lost her husband and her little boy, twenty-nine

he left his wife. Took their three-year-old boy and shipped for Hong Kong between the dark and dawn of a single day.” Danby stopped and patted his chair

years ago last fall.

Right curious story

when you know it all, too.

in drink.

But the old duffer was a devil

Kinder man sober you never

saw—but rum! Well, it was in drink that

arms with his fat hands while he studied

effect. It was a dramatic little story he had to tell—a story in which he himself had a small part. But the audience betrayed no deep emotion. The Englishman smoked calmly enough. The taciturn young man was studying a chart on the table (Danby