“Miss Thomas,” Mr. Cutting greeted me gravely. I looked at the precise nature of his hand just to the left of Mama’s shoulder, the nails well cut and polished. I nodded briefly, then turned round to regard the bright triangles of sailboats cutting across the smooth surface of the bay.

But Mr. Cutting was involved in machinations of his own. “From which direction do you think the wind blows this morning, Mr. Hunnowell?” he asked amiably.

“From the left,” Bart answered.

“The left?” Mr. Cutting sputtered.

“Yes,” Bart admitted, “I have a ghastly sense of direction.”

“But it means nothing to say it comes from the left.” I turned round. “If you move, then your left is someplace entirely different.”

“What does it mean to know the direction, exactly?” Bart replied, apprehending a deeper conversation.

“Well, young man, I am sure you know that if the wind is blowing from the north, you’re in for a cold snap.”

“You know where you stand,” I put in slowly.

Bart nodded to Mr. Cutting but answered me. “And does that information make an enormous difference to you on a summer day stretched wide and open before you?”

He had managed. He had nudged me clear of the rocks. I could smile at the easy picture he painted. “No, indeed, it does not matter which way the wind blows as long as I am warm. But it matters—in the abstract—in the world of commerce, say.”

“Of commerce?”

“Yes,” I continued. “If the wind blows from the north, men’s ships take longer to enter New York or Boston harbor, and tender cargo may be lost, and a sailor’s babe may be born without the father seeing the first blue eye open, and sweethearts may turn fickle.”

“That is a very fleshy abstract, Miss Thomas,” commented Bart. There was that sound again in his voice, a murmur, a low, low sighing, and I trained my ear upon it—a rapid beat I wished to touch, but could not. “All that human sorrow because of the way the wind blows?”

“Yes, Mr. Hunnowell,” I said with mock severity. “How little you know the world.”

He almost made to reach for my hand, then remembered just in time who sat behind. So the caress came in his answer and sang from his tone. “I little value that knowledge of the world.”

“What other sort of knowledge is there?” Mama broke in impatiently, rattling the colored spools of thread in her basket as she sought another strand, still refusing to look at me.

“Well,” said Mr. Cutting into the breeze above Mama’s head, “I think I’ll pursue the one certain form of knowledge”—I believe I saw his hand rest upon my mother’s shoulder just slightly as he stepped away—“to be found upon the morning steamer. Mr. Hunnowell”—the man looked at Bart—“would you care to come and get the papers?”