“How do you get to be a sort of orphan for a while? The state of orphanhood is like pregnancy”—now mimicking a minstrel’s dialect—“you either is or you ain’t.”

“He means we got kicked out of the house for the summer,” said Eliot, with a scowl. He didn’t like any of these high-flown college men, Will least of all. He had never understood why Nat was always so impressed by him. “Our old man told us he doesn’t want to see our faces again till September. That’s how come we’re here now.”

Will asked what they had done.

“Nothing,” Drew replied. “It’s a new century.”

Then Burton, leaning his bulk against the wheel: “You don’t say? A remarkable observation for one so young. Out of the mouths of babes, eh?”

Eliot wanted to punch his fat face.

“It’s what our father told us this morning when we asked him why we were getting kicked out. He said, ‘It’s a new century,’ and that’s all.”

“Which certainly marks Captain Cyrus as a master of the obvious,” Will said. “If you were chucked out, what are you doing with his yacht? What’s going on here, Natters?”

And as the long twilight of the northern summer settled in and the wind died off to a breath and the harbor became a black mirror reflecting anchor lights and the lights from the casino, Nathaniel told them the story.

“I’d hardly call that getting kicked out,” Burton declared, when he was done. “If it is, I wish my old man would kick me out. I’d take this”—he slapped the wheel—“well, now, where would I take her? Rio. Sure. I’d sail to Rio and dance all night with dusky females with low morals.”

“You wouldn’t be able to walk them home, much less dance with them all night, you walrus,” Will said, and lighted his third cigarette of the hour, the match’s flare in the deepening dusk briefly lending a sinister cast to his face. “What do you plan to do, Natters?”

“Don’t have a plan just yet.”

“And what brings you here? Going to chase my cousin? It’s hopeless, y’know. Connie’s an older woman.”

“Ah, c’mon. I was born March of ’eighty-five, and she was born May of ’eighty-four.”

It seemed to him that Will was being awfully flippant about his feelings, telling him it was hopeless.

“A difference like that might not make a difference in ten years, but right now, she’s interested in fellows their age.” Will indicated his companions with a sweeping motion of his arm, as if he were introducing a stage act. “On the other hand, Tony would be too fat for her, and Van Slyck too short, and Herbie too bookish, so, who knows, maybe you’ve got a prayer, after all.”