'I think she is bewitched, and is not a ship at all, for I feel as though I had never been alive before.'
'That is the effect she first had upon me, when I turned to piracy. What is the cheese like?'
'The cheese is also enchanted.'
'And you do not feel sick?'
'I have not felt better in my life.'
'Eat all you can now, because to-night there will be little time for food. Do you want another crust of bread?'
'Please.'
'This wind will hold all day, but this evening it will fall light, and we shall have to creep along the coast, taking full advantage of the tide. Are you happy?'
'Yes…. Why do you ask?'
'Because I am happy too. Give me some more coffee.'
'The men are very gay to-day,' she said, reaching for the jug, 'is it because of to-night, or because they are at sea again?'
'A mixture of both. And they are gay, too, because of you.'
'Why should I make any difference?'
'You are an added stimulation. They will work all the better to-night because of you.'
'Why did you not have a woman on board before?'
He smiled, his mouth full of bread and cheese, but he did not answer.
'I forgot to tell you,' she said, 'what Godolphin said the other day.'
'And what did he say?'
'He told me that there were ugly rumours about the countryside, because of the men belonging to your ship. He said that he had heard of cases of women in distress.'
'In distress about what?'
'The very thing I asked him. And he replied, to my choking delight, that he feared some of the country- women had suffered at the hands of your damned scoundrels.'
'I doubt if they suffered.'
'So do I.'
He went on munching bread and cheese, glancing aloft now and again at the trim of the sails.
'My fellows never force their attentions upon your women,' he said, 'the trouble generally is that your women won't leave them alone. They creep out of their cottages, and stray upon the hills, if they think La Mouette is at anchor near their shores. Even our faithful William has trouble that way, I understand.'
'William is very-Gallic.'
'So am I, so are we all, but pursuit can sometimes be embarrassing.'
'You forget,' she said, 'that the country-women find their husbands very dull.'
'They should teach their husbands better manners.'
'The English yokel is not at his best when he makes love.'
'So I have heard. But surely he can improve, upon instruction.'
'How can a woman instruct her husband in the things she does not know herself, in which she has had no intuition?'
'Surely she has instinct?'
'Instinct is not always enough.'
'Then I am very sorry for your country-women.'
He leant on his elbow, feeling in the pocket of his long coat for a pipe, and she watched him fill the bowl with the dark harsh tobacco that had lain once in the jar in her bedroom, and in a minute or two he began to smoke, holding the bowl in his hand.
'I told you once before,' he observed, his eyes aloft at his spars, 'that Frenchmen have a reputation for gallantry that is not merited. We cannot all be brilliant our side of the channel, while the blunderers remain on yours.'
'Perhaps there is something in our English climate that is chilling to the imagination?'
'Climate has nothing to do with it, nor racial differences. A man, or a woman for that matter, is either born with a natural understanding of these things or he is not.'
'And supposing, in marriage for example, one partner has the understanding and the other has not?'
'Then the marriage is doubtless very monotonous, which I believe most marriages to be.' A wisp of smoke blew across her face, and looking up she saw that he was laughing at her.
'Why are you laughing?' she said.
'Because your face was so serious, as though you were considering writing a treatise on incompatibility.'
'Perhaps I may do so, in my old age.'
'The Lady St. Columb must write with knowledge of her subject, that is essential to all treatises.'
'Possibly I have that knowledge.'
'Possibly you have. But to make the treatise complete you must add a final word on compatibility. It does happen, you know, from time to time, that a man finds a woman who is the answer to all his more searching dreams. And the two have understanding of each other, from the lightest moment to the darkest mood.'
'But it does not happen very often?'
'No, not very often.'
'Then my treatise will have to remain incomplete.'
'Which will be unfortunate for your readers, but even more unfortunate for yourself.'
'Ah, but instead of a word on-compatibility, as you phrase it, I could write a page or two on motherhood. I am an excellent mother.'
'Are you?'
'Yes. Ask William. He knows all about it.'
'If you are so excellent a mother what are you doing on the deck of La Mouette with your legs tucked up under you and your hair blowing about your face, discussing the intimacies of marriage with a pirate?'
This time it was Dona who laughed, and putting her hands to her hair she tried to arrange the disordered ringlets, tying them behind her ears with a ribbon from her bodice.
'Do you know what Lady St. Columb is doing now?' she asked.
'I should love to know.'
'She is lying in bed with a feverish headache and a chill on the stomach, and she will receive no one in her room except William, her faithful servant, who now and again brings her grapes to soothe her fever.'
'I am sorry for her ladyship, especially if she browses on incompatibility as she lies there.'
'She does no such thing, she is far too level-headed.'
'If Lady St. Columb is level-headed why did she masquerade as a highwayman in London, and dress herself in breeches?'
'Because she was angry.'
'Why was she angry?'
'Because she had not made a success of her life.'
'And finding she had not made a success, she tried to escape?'
'Yes.'
'And if Lady St. Columb tosses on a bed of fever now, regretting the past, who is this woman sitting on the deck beside me?'
'She is a cabin-boy, the most insignificant member of your crew.'
'The cabin-boy has a monstrous appetite, he has eaten up all the cheese, and three-quarters of the loaf.'
'I am sorry. I thought you had finished.'
'So I have.'
He smiled at her, and she looked away, lest he should read her eyes and think her wanton, which she knew herself to be, and did not care. Then, emptying his pipe on the deck, he said: 'Would you like to sail the ship?'
She looked at him once again, her eyes dancing.
