There were times when you felt you could safely disregard what the
Captain was saying, and go your way, for he was by no means a tyrant or
martinet. On the other hand, there were now and then occasions when he
said something one knew instinctively must be regarded. Perhaps more
the inflection than the substance—or maybe just a faint lifting of the
chilly, flickering eyebrows.
At any rate, when the Captain suggested to Elsa that she stay on board
that evening with her novel and not attempt to explore the island until
morning, she knew this to be one of the times. Shrugging her shoulders,
she drawled:
“All right, Captain. It’ll be too dark by the time we get in to see the
sights.” And added, a little languidly: “This doesn’t seem the liveliest
of ports.”
“No. There’s an embargo on oil, and the natives have never heard of
electricity. Mr. Rutherford, I’d cut down a little more. We can afford to
creep here. There’s a legend about reefs, and you know,” he added, with a
graceful gesture in the direction of the cabin where he kept his library
of sailing directions, “even the best of our charts weren’t drawn by God
Almighty.”
Though the restriction passed no further, and though he was secretly
prodded with curiosity to see what sort of place this was to which Stella
had come with her fabulous husband, Jerome announced to Elsa that he,
too, would wait until morning to go ashore. He would stay and keep her
company—unless she really preferred her book.
This pleased her, though she didn’t, of course, show it. It was
interesting to come across a young man apparently quite as disillusioned
as herself, and one who never attempted even abstractly, to make love
to her. That, indeed, was the beauty of the whole arrangement, on both
sides. Each felt as the other did about life, and especially about the
opposite sex and romance and moonlight and all that sort of thing.
Jerome smiled easily as he suggested she might prefer her book, and
Elsa—well. Elsa would very greatly have preferred him to her book; but
she felt, too, just the way he did: that is, had penetrated beyond the
tiresome realm of feeling altogether; so that; after all, at the last
moment she made him go along. There was, to tell the truth, a tiny and
very complex tremor of alarm in her enigmatic heart, and she knew she
must remain indifferent at all costs. Besides, since a restriction
had been laid down, she found it irksome to face the ordeal of waiting
until morning for news of their mutual friend. There were times when the
Captain was a little tedious.
Jerome, also, was very anxious to keep his new and hard-won indifference
intact; but since whether he went or waited was a matter of very small
consequence, he decided, on Elsa’s request, to go. Captain Utterbourne
and two or three officers were about to embark in the little launch.
Jerome ran and joined the shore party. The whole of the way in the
Captain talked dreamily about the relative excellence of Cuban and
Haitian rum.