The invitation to join the yacht was the culminating point of many exchanged civilities, and was mainly prompted by Mr. Travers’ desire to have somebody to talk to. D’Alcacer had accepted with the reckless indifference of a man to whom one method of flight from a relentless enemy is as good as another. Certainly the prospect of listening to long monologues on commerce, administration, and politics did not promise much alleviation to his sorrow; and he could not expect much else from Mr. Travers, whose life and thought, ignorant of human passion, were devoted to extracting the greatest possible amount of personal advantage from human institutions. D’Alcacer found, however, that he could attain a measure of forgetfulness—the most precious thing for him now—in the society of Edith Travers.
She had awakened his curiosity, which he thought nothing and nobody on earth could do any more.
These two talked of things indifferent and interesting, certainly not connected with human institutions, and only very slightly with human passions; but d’Alcacer could not help being made aware of her latent capacity for sympathy developed in those who are disenchanted with life or death. How far she was disenchanted he did not know, and did not attempt to find out. This restraint was imposed upon him by the chivalrous respect he had for the secrets of women and by a conviction that deep feeling is often impenetrably obscure, even to those it masters for their inspiration or their ruin. He believed that even she herself would never know; but his grave curiosity was satisfied by the observation of her mental state, and he was not sorry that the stranding of the yacht prolonged his opportunity.
Time passed on that mudbank as well as anywhere else, and it was not from a multiplicity of events, but from the lapse of time alone, that he expected relief. Yet in the sameness of days upon the Shallows, time flowing ceaselessly, flowed imperceptibly; and, since every man clings to his own, be it joy, be it grief, he was pleased after the unrest of his wanderings to be able to fancy the whole universe and even time itself apparently come to a standstill; as if unwilling to take him away further from his sorrow, which was fading indeed but undiminished, as things fade, not in the distance but in the mist.
II
D’Alcacer was a man of nearly forty, lean and sallow, with hollow eyes and a drooping brown moustache. His gaze was penetrating and direct, his smile frequent and fleeting. He observed Lingard with great interest. He was attracted by that elusive something—a line, a fold, perhaps the form of the eye, the droop of an eyelid, the curve of a cheek, that trifling trait which on no two faces on earth is alike, that in each face is the very foundation of expression, as if, all the rest being heredity, mystery, or accident, it alone had been shaped consciously by the soul within.
Now and then he bent slightly over the slow beat of a red fan in the curve of the deck chair to say a few words to Mrs. Travers, who answered him without looking up, without a modulation of tone or a play of feature, as if she had spoken from behind the veil of an immense indifference stretched between her and all men, between her heart and the meaning of events, between her eyes and the shallow sea which, like her gaze, appeared profound, forever stilled, and seemed, far off in the distance of a faint horizon, beyond the reach of eye, beyond the power of hand or voice, to lose itself in the sky.
Mr. Travers stepped aside, and speaking to Carter, overwhelmed him with reproaches.
“You misunderstood your instructions,” murmured Mr. Travers rapidly. “Why did you bring this man here? I am surprised—”
“Not half so much as I was last night,” growled the young seaman, without any reverence in his tone, very provoking to Mr. Travers.
“I perceive now you were totally unfit for the mission I entrusted you with,” went on the owner of the yacht.
“It’s he who got hold of me,” said Carter. “Haven’t you heard him yourself, sir?”
“Nonsense,” whispered Mr. Travers, angrily. “Have you any idea what his intentions may be?”
“I half believe,” answered Carter, “that his intention was to shoot me in his cabin last night if I—”
“That’s not the point,” interrupted Mr. Travers. “Have you any opinion as to his motives in coming here?”
Carter raised his weary, bloodshot eyes in a face scarlet and peeling as though it had been licked by a flame. “I know no more than you do, sir. Last night when he had me in that cabin of his, he said he would just as soon shoot me as let me go to look for any other help. It looks as if he were desperately bent upon getting a lot of salvage money out of a stranded yacht.”
Mr. Travers turned away, and, for a moment, appeared immersed in deep thought. This accident of stranding upon a deserted coast was annoying as a loss of time. He tried to minimize it by putting in order the notes collected during the year’s travel in the East. He had sent off for assistance; his sailing-master, very crestfallen, made bold to say that the yacht would most likely float at the next spring tides; d’Alcacer, a person of undoubted nobility though of inferior principles,
