As the deck was faintly illuminated, since we were again sailing with
lights, I saw that change in her eyes which comes when a fire on a hearth
bursts into a conflagration.
Probably my tone and the change in my manner had startled her.
“You? What?” she began, confusedly.
“I’ll tell you what your plans are; but before that let me tell you
something else.”
She put up her hand. “Wait! Don’t—”
But it was too late to stop me. I couldn’t have stopped myself. I was
carried on by the impetus that came from my having been so many years
held back. I was no longer the consecrated servant of a cause. As for
having been a drunkard and a thief, no shadow of remembrance stayed with
me. I was simply a man head over heels in love with a woman, and in all
sorts of stupid, stumbling phrases saying so.
She listened because she couldn’t do anything else without walking
away; but she listened with a kind of aloofness. With her clasped hands
resting on the rail and her little, black silhouette held quietly erect,
she gazed off toward a great white star, which I suppose must have been
Capella, and heard my tale because she couldn’t stop it.
“Listen,” I went on, leaning on an arm extended along the rail. “I’ll
tell you your story. I’ve pieced it together and I know what it is. I
didn’t know it when I came on board. It puzzled me.”
Her lips moved, but there was no turn of her head or stir of her person.
“Please don’t. I’m—I’m not sure that I could bear it.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You’ve done certain things. Let me give you their
interpretation.”
“If I do—” she began, weakly.