As the boat went smoothly and fleetly over the calm water, through the
silvery night, beneath the immense vault of the starry heavens, he
talked to her with kindly gentleness, and heard from her all there was
to hear of her short life and of her great love for Bonaventure.
The course they took was almost wholly free of vessels; some heavy
brig, fish or fruit laden, alone crossed their path, and the great
green or red lights of the steamships were always afar off. The
navigation of their little vessel did not so engross either of them
that they had not leisure to converse, and Damaris, in the dusk of
the night, in the familiar sea breeze and sea scent, in the motion
of the boat which was as welcome and soothing to her as the rocking
of its nurse's arms to a child, felt an exhilaration which restored
her spirits and loosened her power of speech. She ceased to be afraid
of the chastisement she would receive at Bonaventure, and she felt a
confidence in the kindness and the protection of her companion which
was very different to the flattered vanity and fascinated awe which his
wife had aroused in her.
That he was a _grand seigneur_ did not affect her with any sense of
diffidence, both because the granddaughter of Jean Bérarde had been
reared in an utter indifference to such divisions of rank, and also
because in her own heart she fondly nourished the legend of her own
pure descent. The sea lords of the mountain above San Remo were as
true and near to her in her belief as Hugh Lupus to the Grosvenors, as
Hugues Capet to Don Carlos.
It had been eleven o'clock when they had left the quay of St.
Pharamond. It was dawn when they came in sight of the island; its grey
olive-crowned side fused softly with the silvery dusk which preceded
the sunrise. There was no sail in sight, except in the offing to the
eastward some score of barques looking no larger than a flock of
sea-swallows: they were those of a coral fleet.
'Is that your little kingdom?' asked Othmar, looking towards the
cloudlike isle which seemed to float between the sea and sky. 'Well,
it must be a charming life all alone there amidst the waters, far away
from the world and all its fret and fume. You must be happy there?'
'Oh yes,' she answered rather doubtfully, without the spontaneous
whole-heartedness which had characterised her replies to Loswa. 'But,
you see--there is a good deal of the fret and the fume--because we
trade with the mainland, and when prices are bad my grandfather is out
of temper. It is not like Fénelon's island at all.'
'Even if not, be sure it is happier to be on it than amidst the world,'
said Othmar, anxious to undo what his wife and her friends had done.
'The pastoral life is the best there is, and when it is joined to the
liberty of a seafaring life, it seems to me to be perfect.
'I believe, at least I know,' he continued with some hesitation, 'that
my wife spoke to you of your talents, and of all they might do for
you in that bigger world which is to you only "the mainland." Perhaps
they might do much, perhaps they might do nothing; that world is very
capricious, and its rewards are not always just. Poets are charming
companions, but they are not infallible guides. Fate has given you a
safe home, a tranquil lot, a sure provision. Do not tempt fortune to
desert you by showing it any ingratitude. I fear my words seem very
cold and dull ones after the gorgeous flatteries you have heard, but
they at least are wise as I see wisdom for you; and, believe me, they
are well meant.'
He spoke with earnestness as the boat approached the island, and, with
the sail lowered, drifted lightly before the wind towards the beach.
'Will you tell your grandfather?' asked Othmar, as they neared the isle.
'Do you think that I ought?' she said in a very low voice, in which was
an unspoken supplication.
'I think you ought,' he answered. 'Do not begin your life with a
secret.'
She was silent.
'Surely,' he continued, 'he will not be very angry when he knows that
you were so much pressed by the Countess Othmar, and that I have
myself brought you home. He will be sure you have been as safe as with
himself. I will come and see you again some day.'
The face of Damaris clouded. She was silent, occupying herself with
guiding the vessel through the surf which broke on the broad shell
beach of Bonaventure.
The mists were white and soft, the head of the cliffs was invisible in
the tender silvery fog; she could hear the voices above her of Clovis
and Brunehildt. The boat was run ashore, and she leaped out before
Othmar could aid her.
'You are vexed with me,' he said with a smile. 'But, indeed, my dear,
it would be a life-long regret to me if, through any suggestion or
persuasion of my wife's, you were brought into a life which failed to
answer your ideal of it, and rendered you unfitted to return to the
simplicity and quiet of this happy little place. There are neither
knights nor lions nowadays for Una. She must defend herself in a bitter
warfare in which her sex is only a weapon against her, while her
enemies are without scruple. Adieu, you will prefer to go up alone.'
She turned quickly, and looked up at him with a contrite, timid little
smile.
'I have no doubt you are right, only--one dreams things--sometimes. I
ought to thank you so much: you have been very good to me.'
'Not at all. I have had a charming night upon the sea, and am your
debtor.'
Then he begged her to keep the little gold compass in memory of that
evening, raised his hat, and left her.
'Can you manage the boat alone?' she cried to him in anxiety.
'Quite well,' said Othmar, as he pushed it through the surf.
When he was some roods from the shore he looked back; he saw the figure
of Damaris still standing where he had left her, the silvery green mass
of the olive-clothed cliffs rising behind her till they were lost in
the hovering clouds of mist. The barking of the dogs came faintly over
the sea, and a bell tolled from above the daybreak call to work.
'I have done what I can,' thought Othmar, 'but the poison is there. No
antidote, even if it succeed, can ever make the blood quite what it was
before the virus entered. And what are ambition and discontent but as
the bite of a snake when they seize on a woman--a child?'
Then he went back over the calm blue water, while with every moment the
white light in the east spread further, and the mists lifted and the
winds dropped, and soon in all its glory rose the sun.
To this man, whose youth had been full of high ideals, which his
manhood had found it utterly impossible for him to fulfil, there was
something which touched him profoundly in all youth which, as once his
own had done, looked forward to the world as to some field of combat,
where the fair flowers of faith and of justice would possess a magical
strength like the lilies and roses wherewith the nymphs smote Rinaldo.
To the eyes of men, Othmar appeared the most enviable of all persons;
to the society around him, as to the multitudes to whom he was but one
of the great names which govern the destinies of nations, it seemed
that few living beings had ever enjoyed so complete a happiness and
prosperity as did he. But in the bottom of his own heart there was a
latent bitterness, which was disappointment. He could not have said
where or how precisely this sense of failure came to him, in the midst
of what was absolute success and entire fruition of all his wishes.
Yet it was there. It is the accompaniment of all power and of all
possession. Contentment looks from a narrow lattice on a tiny garden
bounded by a high box hedge. Culture has the vast horizon of the
universe and finds it small, it can measure the stars, and sighs to
wander beyond their spheres. Dissatisfaction is the shadow which goes
with all light of the intelligence. The uncultured mind can be content;
the cultured, never.