So he kept his peace and by and by his curiosity, as it always did, disappeared before immediate affairs.
The drawing-room was a noble apartment, with dark oaken beams, a polished oaken floor, upon which eastern rugs were spread, and heavy tables of foreign woods.

A small model of a sloop rested upon one table and a model of a schooner on another.

Here and there were great curving shells with interiors of pink and white, and upon the walls were curious long, crooked knives of the Malay Islands.

Everything savored of the sea.

Again Robert's imagination leaped up.