第31章

She had taken the whole of a cabin on the quieter deck below the promenade, paying for it nearly half of what was left of the four thousand francs.The first three days she kept to her cabin except at the dinner-hour, when she ventured to the deck just outside and walked up and down for exercise.Then followed four days of nasty weather during which she did not leave her bed.As the sea calmed, she, wretched and reckless, had a chair put for herself under her window and sat there, veiled and swathed and turning her face away whenever a rare wandering passenger happened to pass along.Toward noon a man paused before her to light a cigarette.She, forgetting for the moment her precautions, looked at him.It chanced that he looked at her at exactly the same instant.Their glances met.He started nervously, moved on a few steps, returned.Said she mockingly:

``You know you needn't speak if you don't want to, Stanley.''

``There isn't a soul on board that anybody ever knew or that ever knew anybody,'' said he.``So why not?''

``And you look horribly bored.''

``Unspeakably,'' replied Baird.``I've spoken to no one since I left Paris.''

``What are you doing on this ship?'' inquired she.

``To be perfectly honest,'' said he, ``I came this way to avoid you.I was afraid you'd take passage on my steamer just to amuse yourself with my nervousness.

And--here you are!''

``Amusing myself with your nervousness.''

``But I'm not nervous.There's no danger.Will you let me have a chair put beside yours?''

``It will be a charity on your part,'' said she.

When he was comfortably settled, he explained his uneasiness.``I see I've got to tell you,'' said he, ``for I don't want you to think me a shouting ass.The fact is my wife wants to get a divorce from me and to soak me for big alimony.She's a woman who'll do anything to gain her end, and--well, for some reason she's always been jealous of you.I didn't care to get into trouble, or to get you into trouble.''

``I'm traveling as Mary Stevens,'' said Mildred.

``No one knows I'm aboard.''

``Oh, I'm sure we're quite safe.We can enjoy the rest of this voyage.''

A sea voyage not merely induces but compels a feeling of absolute detachment from the world.To both Stanley and Mildred their affairs--the difficulties in which they were involved on terra firma--ceased for the time to have any reality.The universe was nothing but a vast stretch of water under a vast stretch of sky; the earth and the things thereof were a retrospect and a foreboding.Without analyzing it, both he and she felt that they were free--free from cares, from responsibilities--free to amuse themselves.And they proceeded to enjoy themselves in the necessarily quiet and limited way imposed by the littleness of their present world and the meagerness of the resources.

As neither had the kind of mind that expands in abstractions, they were soon talking in the most intimate and personal way about themselves--were confessing things which neither would have breathed to anyone on land.It was the man who set the example of breaking through the barriers of conventional restraint--perhaps of delicacy, though it must be said that human beings are rarely so fine in their reticences as the theory of refinement would have us believe.Said Stanley, after the preliminaries of partial confidence and halting avowal that could not be omitted, even at sea, by a man of ``gentlemanly instinct'':

``I don't know why I shouldn't own up.I know you'll never tell anybody.Fact is, I and my wife were never in love with each other for a second.We married because we were in the same set and because our incomes together gave us enough to do the thing rather well.''

After a solemn pause.``I was in love with another woman--one I couldn't marry.But I'll not go into that.As for my wife, I don't think she was in love with anyone.She's as cold as a stone.''

Mildred smiled ironically.

Baird saw and flushed.``At least, she was to me.

I was ready to make a sort of bluff.You see, a man feels guilty in those circumstances and doesn't want to humiliate a woman.But she--'' he laughed unpleasantly--``she wasn't bothering about MY feelings.

That's a nice, selfish little way you ladies have.''

``She probably saw through you and hated you for playing the hypocrite to her,'' said Mildred.

``You may be right, I never thought of that,''

confessed he.``She certainly had a vicious way of hammering the other woman indirectly.Not that she ever admitted being jealous.I guess she knew.Everybody usually knows everything.''

``And there was a great deal of talk about you and me,'' said Mildred placidly.

``I didn't say it was you,'' protested Stanley, reddening.

``No matter,'' said Mildred.``Don't bother about that.It's all past and gone.''

``Well, at any rate, my marriage was the mistake of my life.I'm determined that she shan't trip me up and trim me for any alimony.And as matters stand, she can't.She left me of her own accord.''

``Then,'' said Mildred thoughtfully, ``if the wife leaves of her own accord, she can't get alimony?''

``Certainly not--not a cent.''