It was not until the dinner hour on the following day that Paul and Opal
met again. One does not require an excuse for keeping to one's stateroom
during an ocean voyage--especially during the first few days--and the
girl, though in excellent health and a capital sailor, kept herself
secluded.
She wanted to understand herself and to understand this stranger who was
yet no stranger. For a girl who had looked upon life as she had she felt
woefully unsophisticated. But the Boy? He was certainly not a man of the
world, who through years of lurid experience had learned to look upon
all women as his legitimate quarry. If he had been that sort, she told
herself, she would have been on her guard instinctively from the very
first. But she knew he was too young for that--far too young--- and his
eyes were frank and clear and open, with no dark secrets behind their
curtained lids. But what was he--and who?
When the day was far spent, she knew that she was no nearer a solution
than she had been at dawn, so she resolved to join the group at table
and put behind her the futile labor of self-examination. She would not,
of course, deign to show any leniency toward the offender--indeed not!
She would not vouchsafe one unnecessary word for his edification.
But she took elaborate care with her toilet, selected her most becoming
gown and drove her maid into a frenzy by her variations of taste and
temper.
It was truly a very bewitching Opal who finally descended to the _salon_
and joined the party of four masculine incapables who had spent the day
in vain search for amusement. Paul Zalenska rose hastily at her entrance
and though she made many attempts to avoid his gaze she was forced at
last to meet it. The electric spark of understanding flashed from eye to
eye, and both thrilled in answer to its magnetic call. In the glance
that passed between them was lurking the memory of a kiss.
Opal blushed faintly. How dare he remember! Why, his very eyes echoed
that triumphant laugh she could not forget. She stole another glance at
him. Perhaps she had misjudged him--but--
She turned to respond to the greeting of her father and the other two
gentlemen, and soon found herself seated at the table opposite the Boy
she had so recently vowed to shun. Well, she needn't talk to him, that
was one consolation. Yet she caught herself almost involuntarily
listening for what he would say at this or that turn of the conversation
and paying strict--though veiled--attention to his words.
It was a strange dinner. No one felt at ease. The air was charged with
something that all felt too tangibly oppressive, yet none could define,
save the two--who would not.
* * * * *
For Paul the evening was a dismal failure. Try as he would, he could not
catch Opal's eye again, nor secure more than the most meagre replies
even to his direct questions. She was too French to be actually
impolite, but she interposed between them those barriers only a woman
can raise. She knew that Paul was mad for a word with her; she knew that
she was tormenting and tantalizing him almost beyond endurance; she felt
his impatience in every nerve of her, with that mysterious sixth sense
some women are endowed with, and she rejoiced in her power to make him
suffer. He deserved to suffer, she said. Perhaps he'd have some idea of
the proper respect due the next girl he met! These foreigners! _Mon
Dieu_! She'd teach him that American girls were a little different from
the kind they had in his country, where "what men want, they take," as
he had said. What kind of heathen was he?
And she watched him surreptitiously from under her long lashes with a
curious gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. She had always known she had
this power over men, but she had never cared quite so much about using
it before and had been more annoyed than gratified by the effect her
personality had had upon her masculine world.
So she smiled at the Count, she laughed with the Count and made eyes
most shamelessly at the disgusting old gallant till something in his
face warned her that she had reached a point beyond which even her
audacity dared not go.
Heavens! how the old monster would _devour_ a woman, she thought, with a
thrill of disgust. There were awful things in his face!
And the Boy glared at de Roannes with unspeakable profanity in his eyes,
while the girl laughed to herself and enjoyed it all as girls do enjoy
that sort of thing.
It was delightful, this game of speaking eyes and lips.
"Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!"
But it was, as she could dimly see, a game that might prove exceedingly
dangerous to play, and the Count had spoiled it all, anyway. And a
curious flutter in her heart, as she watched the Boy take his punishment
with as good grace as possible, pled for his pardon until she finally
desisted and bade the little company good night.
At her departure the men took a turn at bridge, but none of them seemed
to care much for the cards that night and the Boy soon broke away. He
was about to withdraw to his stateroom in chagrin when quite
unexpectedly he found Opal standing by the rail, wrapped in a long
cloak. She was gazing far out toward the distant horizon, the light of
strange, puzzling thoughts in the depths of her eyes. She did not notice
him until he stood by her side, when she turned and faced him defiantly.
"Opal," he said, "there was one poet of life and love whom we did not
quote in our little discussion to-night. Do you remember Tennyson's
words,
"'A man had given all earthly bliss
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips?'
Let them plead for me the pardon I know no better way to sue for--or
explain!"
The girl was silent. That little flutter in her heart was pleading for
him, but her head was still rebellious, and she knew not which would
triumph. She put one white finger on her lip, and wondered what to say
to him. She would not look into his eyes--they bothered her quite beyond
all reason--so she looked at the deck instead, as though hoping to find
some rule of conduct there.
"I am sorry, Opal," went on the pleading tones, "that is, sorry that it
offended you. I can't be sorry that I did it--yet!"
After a moment of serious reflection, she looked up at him sternly.
"It was a very rude thing to do, Paul! No one ever--"
"Don't you suppose I know that, Opal? Did you think that I thought--"
"How was I to know what you thought, Paul? You didn't know me!"
"Oh, but I do. Better than you know yourself!"
She looked up at him quickly, a startled expression in her soft,
lustrous eyes.
"I--almost--believe you do--Paul."
"Opal!" He paused. She was tempting him again. Didn't she know it?
"Opal, can't--won't you believe in me? Don't you feel that you know
me?"
"I'm not sure that I do--even yet--after--that! Oh, Paul, are you sure
that you know yourself?"
"No, not sure, but I'm beginning to!"
She made no reply. After a moment, he said softly, "You haven't said
that you forgive me, yet, Opal! I know there is no plausible excuse for
me, but--listen! I couldn't help it--I truly couldn't! You simply must
forgive me!"
"Couldn't help it?"--Oh, the scorn of her reply. "If there had been any
man in you at all, you could have helped it!"
"No, Opal, you don't understand! It is because I _am_ a man that I
couldn't help it. It doesn't strike you that way now, I know, but--some
day you will see it!"
And suddenly she did see it. And she reached out her hand to him, and
whispered, "Then let's forget all about it. I am willing to--if you
will!"
Forget? He would not promise that. He did not wish to forget! And she
looked so pretty and provoking as she said it, that he wanted to--! But
he only took her hand, and looked his gratitude into her eyes.
The Count de Roannes came unexpectedly and unobserved upon the climax of
the little scene, and read into it more significance than it really had.
It was not strange, perhaps, that to him this meeting should savour of
clandestine relations and that he should impute to it false motives and
impulses. The Count prided himself upon his tact, and was therefore very
careful to use the most idiomatic English in his conversation. But at
this sudden discovery--for he had not imagined that the acquaintance had
gone beyond his own discernment--he felt the English language quite
inadequate to the occasion, and muttered something under his breath that
sounded remarkably like "_Tison d'enfer!_" as he turned on his heel and
made for his stateroom.
And the Boy, unconscious and indifferent to all this by-play, had only
time to press to his lips the little hand she had surrendered to him
before the crowd was upon them.
But the waves were singing a Te Deum in his ears, and the skies were
bluer in the moonlight than ever sea-skies were before. Paul felt, with
a thrill of joy, that he was looking far off into the vaster spaces of
life, with their broader, grander possibilities. He felt that he was
wiser, nobler, stronger--nearer his ideal of what a brave man should be.