ed as Morrison; for he
understood the other's feelings perfectly. No decent feeling was ever
scorned by Heyst. But he was incapable of outward cordiality of manner,
and he felt acutely his defect. Consummate politeness is not the right
tonic for an emotional collapse. They must have had, both of them, a
fairly painful time of it in the cabin of the brig. In the end Morrison,
casting desperately for an idea in the blackness of his despondency,
hit upon the notion of inviting Heyst to travel with him in his brig and
have a share in his trading ventures up to the amount of his loan.

It is characteristic of Heyst's unattached, floating existence that he
was in a position to accept this proposal. There is no reason to think
that he wanted particularly just then to go poking aboard the brig into
all the holes and corners of the Archipelago where Morrison picked up
most of his trade. Far from it; but he would have consented to almost
any arrangement in order to put an end to the harrowing scene in the
cabin. There was at once a great transformation act: Morrison raising
his diminished head, and sticking the glass in his eye to looked
affectionately at Heyst, a bottle being uncorked, and so on. It was
agreed that nothing should be said to anyone of this transaction.
Morrison, you understand, was not proud of the episode, and he was
afraid of being unmercifully chaffed.

"An old bird like me! To let myself be trapped by those damned
Portuguese rascals! I should never hear the last of it. We must keep it
dark."

From quite other motives, among which his native delicacy was the
principal, Heyst was even more anxious to bind himself to silence. A
gentleman would naturally shrink from the part of heavenly messenger
that Morrison would force upon him. It made Heyst uncomfortable, as it
was. And perhaps he did not care that it should be known that he had
some means, whatever they might have been--sufficient, at any rate, to
enable him to lend money to people. These two had a duet down there,
like conspirators in a comic opera, of "Sh--ssh, shssh! Secrecy!
Secrecy!" It must have been funny, because they were very serious about
it.

And for a time the conspiracy was successful in so far that we all
concluded that Heyst was boarding with the good-natured--some said:
sponging on the imbecile--Morrison, in his brig. But you know how it
is with all such mysteries. There is always a leak somewhere. Morrison
himself, not a perfect vesse