Her abominable experience with the governess had implanted in her unlucky breast a lasting doubt, an ineradicable suspicion of herself and of others I said:
“Remember, Miss de Barral, that to be fair you must trust a man altogether—or not at all.”
She dropped her eyes suddenly. I thought I heard a faint sigh. I tried to take a light tone again, and yet it seemed impossible to get off the ground which gave me my standing with her.
“Mrs Fyne is absurd. She’s an excellent woman, but really you could not be expected to throw away your chance of life simply that she might cherish a good opinion of your memory. That would be excessive.”
“It was not of my life that I was thinking while Captain Anthony was—was speaking to me,” said Flora de Barral with an effort.
I told her that she was wrong then. She ought to have been thinking of her life, and not only of her life but of the life of the man who was speaking to her too. She let me finish, then shook her head impatiently.
“I mean—death.”
“Well,” I said, “when he stood before you there, outside the cottage, he really stood between you and that. I have it out of your own mouth. You can’t deny it.”
“If you will have it that he saved my life, then he has got it. It was not for me. Oh no! It was not for me that I—It was not fear! There!” She finished petulantly: “And you may just as well know it.”
She hung her head and swung the parasol slightly to and fro. I thought a little.
“Do you know French, Miss de Barral?” I asked.
She made a sign with her head that she did, but without showing any surprise at the question and without ceasing to swing her parasol.
“Well then, somehow or other I have the notion that Captain Anthony is what the French call un galant homme. I should like to think he is being treated as he deserves.”
The form of her lips (I could see them under the brim of her hat) was suddenly altered into a line of seriousness. The parasol stopped swinging.
“I have given him what he wanted—that’s myself,” she said without a tremor and with a striking dignity of tone.
Impressed by the manner and the directness of the words, I hesitated for a moment what to say. Then made up my mind to clear up the point.
“And you have got what you wanted? Is that it?”
The daughter of the egregious financier de Barral did not answer at once this question going to the heart of things. Then raising her head and gazing wistfully across the street noisy with the endless transit of innumerable bargains, she said with intense gravity:
“He has been most generous.”
I was pleased to hear these words. Not that I doubted the infatuation of Roderick Anthony, but I was pleased to hear something which proved that she was sensible and open to the sentiment of gratitude which in this case was significant. In the face of man’s desire a girl is excusable if she thinks herself priceless. I mean a girl of our civilisation which has established a dithyrambic phraseology for the expression of love. A man in love will accept any convention exalting the object of his passion and in this indirect way his passion itself. In what way the captain of the ship Ferndale gave proofs of lover-like lavishness I could not guess very well. But I was glad she was appreciative. It is lucky that small things please women. And it is not silly of them to be thus pleased. It is in small things that the deepest loyalty, that which they need most, the loyalty of the passing moment, is best expressed.
She had remained thoughtful, letting her deep motionless eyes rest on the streaming jumble of traffic. Suddenly she said:
“And I wanted to ask you—I was really glad when I saw you actually here. Who would have expected you here, at this spot, before this hotel! I certainly never ... You see it meant a lot to me. You are the only person who knows ... who knows for certain...”
“Knows what?” I said, not discovering at first what she had in her mind. Then I saw it. “Why can’t you leave that alone?” I remonstrated, rather annoyed at the invidious position she was forcing on me in a sense. “It’s true that I was the only person to see,” I added. “But, as it happens, after your mysterious disappearance I told the Fynes the story of our meeting.”
Her eyes raised to mine had an expression of dreamy, unfathomable candour, if I dare say so. And if you wonder what I mean I can only say that I have seen the sea wear such an expression on one or two occasions shortly before sunrise on a calm, fresh day. She said as if meditating aloud that she supposed the Fynes were not likely to talk about that. She couldn’t imagine any connection in which... Why should they?
As her tone had become interrogatory I assented. “To be sure. There’s no reason whatever”—thinking to myself that they would be more likely indeed to keep quiet about it. They had other things to talk of. And then remembering little Fyne stuck upstairs for an unconscionable time, enough to blurt out everything he ever knew in his life, I reflected that he would assume naturally that Captain Anthony had nothing to learn from him about Flora de Barral. It had been up to now my assumption too. I saw my mistake. The sincerest of women will make no unnecessary confidences to a man. And this is as it should be.
“No—no!” I said reassuringly. “It’s most unlikely. Are you much concerned?”
“Well, you see, when I came down,” she said again in that precise demure tone, “when I came down—into the garden Captain Anthony misunderstood—”
“Of course he would. Men are so conceited,” I said.
I saw it well enough that he must have thought she had come down to him. What else could he have thought? And then he had been “gentleness itself.” A new experience for that poor, delicate, and yet so resisting creature. Gentleness in passion! What could have been more seductive to the scared, starved heart of that girl? Perhaps had he been violent, she might have told him that what she came down to keep was the tryst of death—not of love. It occurred to me as I looked at her, young, fragile in aspect, and intensely alive in her quietness, that perhaps she did not know herself then what sort of tryst she was coming down to keep.
She smiled faintly, almost awkwardly as if she were totally unused to smiling, at my cheap jocularity. Then she said with that forced precision, a sort of conscious primness:
“I didn’t want him to know.”
I approved heartily. Quite right. Much better. Let him ever remain under his misapprehension which was so much more flattering for him.
I tried to keep it in the tone of comedy; but she was, I believe, too simple to understand my intention. She went on, looking down.
“Oh! You think so? When I saw you I didn’t know why you were here. I was glad when you spoke to me because this is exactly what I wanted to ask you for. I wanted to ask you if you ever meet Captain Anthony—by any chance—anywhere—you are a sailor too, are you not?—that you, would never mention—never—that—that you had seen me over there.”
“My dear young lady,” I cried, horror-struck at the supposition. “Why should I? What makes you think I should dream of...”
She had raised her head at my vehemence. She did not understand it. The world had treated her so dishonourably that she had no notion even of what mere decency of feeling is like. It was not her fault. Indeed, I don’t know why she should have put her trust in anybody’s promises. But I thought it would be better to promise. So I assured her that she could depend on my absolute silence.