Liane Delorme gave a start of dismay.

“There is danger, then?”

“Only if we run afoul of a cutter, Liane.”  Monk tried to speak reassuringly.  “And that’s not likely in this weather.  As for the fog, it’s a dirty nuisance to any navigator but, as I said, may quite possibly prove our salvation.  I know these waters like a book, I’ve sailed them ever since I was old enough to tell a tiller from a mainsheet.  I can smell my way in, if it comes to that, through the blindest fog the Atlantic ever brewed.”

“Then you do things with your nostrils, too?” Phinuit enquired innocently.  “I’ve often wondered if all the intellect was located in the eyebrows.”

Monk glared, growled, and hastily sought the air of the deck.  Liane Delorme eyed Phinuit with amused reproach.

“Really, my young friend!”

“I can’t help it, mademoiselle,” Phinuit asserted sulkily.  “Too much is enough.  I’ve watched him making faces with the top of his head so long I dream of geometrical diagrams laid out in eyebrows—­and wake up screaming.  And they call this a pleasure craft!”

With an aggrieved air he sucked at his pipe for a few minutes.  “Besides,” he added suddenly, “somebody’s got to be comic relief, and I don’t notice anybody else in a sweat to be the Life and Soul of the ship.”

He favoured Lanyard with a morose stare.  “Why don’t you ever put your shoulder to the wheel, Lanyard?  Why leave it all to me?  Come on; be a sport, cut a caper, crack a wheeze, do something to get a giggle!”

“But I am by no means sure you do not laugh at me too much, as it is.”

“Rot!...  Tell you what.”  Phinuit sat up with a gleaming eye of inspiration.  “You can entertain mademoiselle and me no end, if you like.  Spill the glad tidings.”

“Glad tidings?”

“Now don’t monkey with the eyebrows—­please! It gives me the willies...  I merely mean to point out, to-day’s the day you promised to come through with the awful decision.  And there’s no use waiting for Monk to join us; he’s too much worried about his nice little ship.  Tell mademoiselle and me now.”

Lanyard shook his head, smiling.  “But the time I set was when we made our landfall.”

“Well, what’s the matter with Martha’s Vineyard over there?  You could see if it was a clear day.”

“But it is not a clear day.”

“Suppose it gets thicker, a sure-enough fog?  We may not see land before midnight.”

“Then till midnight we must wait.  No, Monsieur Phinuit, I will not be hurried.  I have been thinking, I am still thinking, and there is still much to be said before I can come to any decision that will be fair to you, mademoiselle, the captain on the one hand, myself on the other.”

“But at midnight, if the skipper’s promise holds good, we’ll be going ashore.”

“The objection is well taken.  My answer will be communicated when we see land or at eleven o’clock to-night, whichever is the earlier event.”