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And later still a row-boat came swinging briskly up the quiet channel where the yacht lay and passed her at fifty yards. A man and a woman sat in it, presumably bound for Hunston, and they stared at the hidden, detected Cypriani with a degree of frank interest which suggested that they would not fail to mention the strange sight to every acquaintance they met in town.
One was that they might be removed somewhat from native curiosity. The other was, they might be near the Carstairs residence, which was up this way somewhere. So, between the yacht and the town lay hill and wood intervening. The Cypriani, so to say, had anchored in the country. Only a light glimmering here and there through the trees indicated the nearness of man's abode.
The two young men had been as furtive as possible about their proposed journey. They had not met since the night Varney had dangled the hope of jail and disgrace into Peter's lightening face, and so, or otherwise, cajoled him into going along. Both of them had kept carefully away from the Cypriani. Now they proceeded to her by different routes, and reached her at different times, Peter first.
The Cypriani, for all her odd errand, was merely one of a thousand boats which indifferently crossed each other's wakes in one of the most crowded harbors in the world. "For all the lime-light we draw," observed Maginnis, drinking in the freshening breeze, "we might be running up to Harlem to address the fortnightly meeting of a Girls' Friendly Society." Varney said: "Give us a chance, will you?"
The Cypriani was slowly moving, as though for a ten-minute spin down the river. And then, as she gathered headway, he turned suddenly to Mary and told her everything: how he had deceived and tricked her, and how she would not go back to Hunston that afternoon.... It might have been ten minutes that he sat like this. It might have been half an hour.
He walked to the bow, briskly, by way of a constitutional, turned and started down again. As he did this, his eye fell upon a strange figure which had at first escaped him. Toward the stern of the Cypriani, near the wheel, a little runt of a boy hung over the rail, and made the air noxious with the relicts of a low-born cigar.
And what's that piece of stage-play for?" "All these little hookers," said Varney, "are listed in a book, which many persons own. Why have the local press tell everybody to-morrow that the yacht Cypriani belonging to Mr. Carstairs, husband once-removed to our own Mrs. Elbert Carstairs, is anchored off these shores?" "It seems," said Peter, "like a lot of smoke for such a little fire."
The yacht's lights were set, but her deck bulbs hung dark; for the soft and shimmering radiance of the sky made man's illumination an offense. However, aesthetics, like everything else, has its place in human economy and no more. No one aboard the Cypriani became so absorbed in the marvels of nature as to become insensible to other pleasures.
On the farther side of him, gloved hand holding to the seat back, stood a young girl in a blue linen dress and a rather conspicuously large hat, also of blue. Both of them were looking off toward the Cypriani.
Varney was out of the city, but the man-servant there had no idea of his master's whereabouts. From other sources, however, it was learned that Mr. Varney left New York several days ago on the Cypriani, a handsome steam yacht belonging to Elbert Carstairs of No. 00 Fifth Avenue. An attempt was made to reach Mr. Carstairs at his home, but the hour was late, and he could not be interviewed.
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