"That explains the foreign stamp," he commented.
"You noticed that too, did you?" she asked, flashing a mischievous glance at him. "Really, you took in a lot at a single look. You ought to be a detective."
"I wish I were," said Drew, as he thought ruefully of the unavailing plans he had made to find her. "I'm afraid I'm a pretty bungling amateur."
"Well, you were only half wrong, anyway," she answered. "The first part of the name was right."
"Yes," he admitted. "But that didn't help me much. The last one didn't either for that matter.
There are so many Adamses in the city."
"How do you know?" she challenged.
He grew red. "I I looked in the directory," he confessed.
She thought it high time to change the subject.
"I suppose it will be quite a wrench to say good-bye to your people here," she remarked.
"I haven't any," replied Drew. "My father and my mother died when I was small. The only brother I have is out West, and I haven't seen him for years. I've been boarding since I came to the city, five years ago."
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said with ready sympathy. "I know something of how you feel, because I lost my own mother three years ago. I've been in boarding school most of the time since then. So I know what it is to be without a real home. Sometimes our only home was on shipboard."
"But it's always possible to make a real home," said Drew daringly. Then he checked himself and bit his lip. That troublesome tongue of his! When would he learn to control it?
She pretended not to have heard him.
"I have my father left," she went on; "and he's the best father in the world."
"And the luckiest," put in Drew.
"He didn't want to take me on this trip at first," she continued, "but the most of my relatives and friends are in California, and I knew I'd be horribly lonely in New York. So I begged and teased him to let me go along, and at last he gave in."
"Of course he would," Drew said with conviction. "How could he help it?"
He knew that if she should ask him, Allen Drew, for the moon he would promise it to her without the slightest hesitation. He wished he dared tell her so.
"Have you ever been to sea?" she asked.
"No," replied Allen. "But I've always wanted to go."
And he told her of the longing that had sprung up in him when Captain Peters had spoken so indifferently about the wonder-lands of mystery and romance to which his bark was sailing.
While he talked, she was studying him closely, as is the way of girls, without appearing to do so. She noted the stalwart well-knit figure, the handsome features the strong straight nose, the broad forehead, the brown eyes that sparkled with animation.
Drew was at his best when he talked, especially when his audience was attentive, and there was no doubt that his audience of one was that. She listened almost in silence only putting in a word now and then.
The thought came to him that he might be boring her, and he stopped abruptly.
"If I keep on, you'll be talked to death," he said apologetically.
"Not at all," she protested. "I've been intensely interested. I'm glad you feel so strongly about far-off places, because you're sure to find plenty of romance where we are going."
"And treasure, the doubloons, too don't forget the doubloons," he laughed, lowering his voice and looking around to see that no one was listening.
"And that too," she agreed. "I suppose you've spent your share already?" she bantered.
"Well, I'm not quite so optimistic as all that," he laughed. "But I really think we have a chance. Don't you?"
"Indeed I do!" she exclaimed. "I don't think it's a wild goose chase at all!"
"I'm glad you feel that way about it."
"Even if things go wrong, we can't be altogether cheated," she went on. "We'll have had lots of fun looking for our treasure. Then, too, we'll have had the voyage, and the schooner is a splendid sailing craft."
"She's a beauty," assented Drew. "I don't wonder you're proud of her."
"It was really quite flattering that you men should tell me what you were going for," she said mockingly. "You're always saying that a woman can't keep a secret."
"I don't feel that way," protested Drew. "And to prove it, I'll "
"Listen!" said Ruth hurriedly. "Wasn't that my father calling me?"
"I didn't hear him," he replied, looking at her suspiciously.
"I think I'd better go and make sure," decided Ruth, moved by a sudden impulse of filial duty.
"Let him call again," suggested Drew.
But Ruth was sure that this audacious young man had said quite enough for one morning, and she held out her hand.
"Good-bye," she smiled. "I know from what my father has told me that you have an awful lot to do to get ready for the trip."
"Have I?" rejoined Drew. "I'd forgotten all about them."
They laughed.
He held the soft hand and fluttering fingers a trifle longer than was absolutely necessary, and after he released them he stood watching her lithe figure until she disappeared.
When Drew left the Bertha Hamilton he was treading on air and his head was in the clouds.