The Beach of Dreams | Page 9

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 pass 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.
Cléo 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."
"Monsieur, what an idea--and what was wrong with it?"
"Oh, it was just a fancy. The sea breeds fancies and superstitions, you know that, Lepine, for I believe you are superstitious yourself."
"Perhaps, monsieur; all sailors are, and I have had experiences. There are bad and good ships, just as there are bad