The Beach of Dreams Part 3

"It is good of you to say that," she replied, "all the same I am glad I did not spoil your plan, not so much for your sake as my own."

"How?"

"I would rather die than run away from danger."

"So you feared danger?"

"No, I did not fear it, but I felt it. I felt a premonition of danger. I did not say so at dinner. I did not want to alarm the others."

He looked at her curiously for a moment, contrasting her fragility and beauty with the something unbendable that was her spirit, her soul--call it what you will.

"Well," said he, "your slightest wish is my law. I have been going to speak to you for the last few days. I will say what I want to say now.

It is only four words. Will you marry me?"

She looked up at him, meeting his eyes full and straight.

"No," said she, "it is impossible."

"Why?"

"I have a very great regard for you--but--"

"You do not love me?"

She said nothing, going on with her work calmly as though the conversation was about some ordinary topic.

"I don't see why you should," he went on, "but look around you--how many people marry for love now-a-days--and those who do, are they any the happier? I have seen a very great deal of the world and I know for a fact that happiness in marriage has little to do with what the poets call love and everything to do with companionship. If a man and woman are good companions then they are happy together, if not they are miserable, no matter how much they may love one another at the start."

"Have you seen much of the world?" she raised her eyes again as she asked the question. "Have you seen anything really of the world? I do not mean to be rude, but this world of ours, this world of society that holds us all, is there anything real about it, since nearly everything in it is a sham? Look at the lives we lead, look at Paris and London and Berlin. Why the very language of society is framed to say things we do not mean."

"It is civilization. How else would you have it?"

"I don't know," she replied, "but I do know it is not life. It is dishonesty. You say that the only happy married people are those that are good companions, that love does not count in the long run, and you are right, perhaps, as far as what you call the World is concerned. I only repeat that the thing you call the World is not the real world, for love is real, and love is not merely a question of good companionship.

It is an immortal bond between two spirits and death cannot break it."

"You speak as though you were very certain of a thing which, of all things, is most hidden from us."

"I speak by instinct."

"Well," said the Prince, "perhaps you are right. We have left behind us the simplicity of the old world, we have become artificial, our life is a sham--but what would you have and how are we to alter it? We are all like pa.s.sengers in a train travelling to heaven knows where; the seats are well cushioned and the dining-car leaves nothing to be desired, but I admit the atmosphere is stuffy and the long journey has developed all sorts of unpleasant traits among the pa.s.sengers--well, what would you do? We cannot get out."

"I suppose not," said she.

He rose up and stood for a moment turning over some magazines lying on the table. He had received his answer and he knew instinctively that it was useless to pursue the business further.

Then after a few more words he went on deck. The wind had fallen to a steady blow but the sky was still overcast and the atmosphere was heavy and clammy and not consistent. It was as though the low lying clouds dipped here and there to touch the sea. Every now and then the _Gaston de Paris_ would run into a wreath of fog and pa.s.s through it into the clear darkness of the night beyond.

In the darkness aft of the bridge nothing could be seen but the pale hint of the bridge canvas and a trace of spars and funnels now wiped out with mist, now visible again against the night.

The Prince leaned on the weather rail and looked over at the tumble and sud of the water lit here and there with the gleam of a port light.

Cleo de Bromsart had fascinated him, grown upon him, compelled him in some mysterious way to ask her to marry him. He had sworn after his disastrous first experience never to marry again. He had attempted to break his oath. Was he in love with her? He could scarcely answer that question himself. But this he knew, that her refusal of him and the words she had said were filling his mind with quite new ideas.

Was she right after all in her statement that he who fancied himself a man of the world knew nothing of the world except its shams? Was she right in her statement that love was a bond between two spirits, a bond unbreakable by death? That old idea was not new to him, he had played with it as a toy of the mind constructed for the mind to play with by the poets.

The new thing was to find this idea in the mind of a young girl and to hear it expressed with such conviction.

After a while he came forward and went up the steps to the bridge.

Captain Lepine was in the chart room, the first officer was on the bridge and Bouvalot, an old navy quarter-master, had the wheel.

"We have slowed down," said the Prince.

"Yes, monsieur," replied the first officer, "we are getting close to land. We ought to sight Kerguelen at dawn."

"What do you think of the weather?"

"I don't think the weather will bother us much, monsieur, that blow had nothing behind it, and were it not for these fog patches I would ask nothing better; but then it's Kerguelen--what can one expect!"

"True," said the other, "it's a vile place, by all accounts, as far as weather is concerned."

He tapped at the door of the chart room and entered.

The chart room of the _Gaston de Paris_ was a pleasant change from the dark and damp of the bridge. A couch upholstered in red velvet ran along one side of it and on the couch with one leg up and a pipe in his mouth the captain was resting himself, a big man of the Southern French navy type, with a beard of burnt-up black that reached nearly to his eyes.

The Prince, telling him not to move, sat down and lit a cigar. Then they fell into talk.

Lepine was a sailor and nothing else. Had his character been cut out of cardboard the line of division between the sailor and the rest of the world could not have been more sharply marked. That was perhaps why the two men, though divided by a vast social gulf, were friends, almost chums.

They talked for half an hour or so on all sorts of subjects connected with the ship.

"By the way, Lepine," said the Prince suddenly, "It has been the toss up of a sou that we are not now steering a course for New Amsterdam."

"And how is that, monsieur?"

"Well, Mademoiselle de Bromsart proposed to me at dinner that we should alter our course, the idea came to her that some misfortune might happen to us off Kerguelen and, as you know, I am always anxious to please my guests--well, I called a quarter-master down. I was going to have sent for you."

"To alter our course?"

"Yes, but Mademoiselle de Bromsart altered her mind. She refused to let me send for you."

"But what gave the young lady that idea?" asked the Captain.

"That big ship we sighted before dinner."

"The three-master?"

"Yes, there was something about it she did not like."