________________________________________________
_ "Some people," said Lingard, "go about the world with their eyes
shut. You are right. The sea is free to all of us. Some work on
it, and some play the fool on it--and I don't care. Only you may
take it from me that I will let no man's play interfere with my
work. You want me to understand you are a very great man--"
Mr. Travers smiled, coldly.
"Oh, yes," continued Lingard, "I understand that well enough. But
remember you are very far from home, while I, here, I am where I
belong. And I belong where I am. I am just Tom Lingard, no more,
no less, wherever I happen to be, and--you may ask--" A sweep of
his hand along the western horizon entrusted with perfect
confidence the remainder of his speech to the dumb testimony of
the sea.
He had been on board the yacht for more than an. hour, and
nothing, for him, had come of it but the birth of an unreasoning
hate. To the unconscious demand of these people's presence, of
their ignorance, of their faces, of their voices, of their eyes,
he had nothing to give but a resentment that had in it a germ of
reckless violence. He could tell them nothing because he had not
the means. Their coming at this moment, when he had wandered
beyond that circle which race, memories, early associations, all
the essential conditions of one's origin, trace round every man's
life, deprived him in a manner of the power of speech. He was
confounded. It was like meeting exacting spectres in a desert.
He stared at the open sea, his arms crossed, with a reflective
fierceness. His very appearance made him utterly different from
everyone on board that vessel. The grey shirt, the blue sash, one
rolled-up sleeve baring a sculptural forearm, the negligent
masterfulness of his tone and pose were very distasteful to Mr.
Travers, who, having made up his mind to wait for some kind of
official assistance, regarded the intrusion of that inexplicable
man with suspicion. From the moment Lingard came on board the
yacht, every eye in that vessel had been fixed upon him. Only
Carter, within earshot and leaning with his elbow upon the rail,
stared down at the deck as if overcome with drowsiness or lost in
thought.
Of the three other persons aft, Mr. Travers kept his hands in the
side pockets of his jacket and did not conceal his growing
disgust.
On the other side of the deck, a lady, in a long chair, had a
passive attitude that to Mr. d'Alcacer, standing near her, seemed
characteristic of the manner in which she accepted the
necessities of existence. Years before, as an attache of his
Embassy in London, he had found her an interesting hostess. She
was even more interesting now, since a chance meeting and Mr.
Travers' offer of a passage to Batavia had given him an
opportunity of studying the various shades of scorn which he
suspected to be the secret of her acquiescence in the shallowness
of events and the monotony of a worldly existence.
There were things that from the first he had not been able to
understand; for instance, why she should have married Mr.
Travers. It must have been from ambition. He could not help
feeling that such a successful mistake would explain completely
her scorn and also her acquiescence. The meeting in Manila had
been utterly unexpected to him, and he accounted for it to his
uncle, the Governor-General of the colony, by pointing out that
Englishmen, when worsted in the struggle of love or politics,
travel extensively, as if by encompassing a large portion of
earth's surface they hoped to gather fresh strength for a renewed
contest. As to himself, he judged--but did not say--that his
contest with fate was ended, though he also travelled, leaving
behind him in the capitals of Europe a story in which there was
nothing scandalous but the publicity of an excessive feeling, and
nothing more tragic than the early death of a woman whose
brilliant perfections were no better known to the great world
than the discreet and passionate devotion she had innocently
inspired.
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. _
Read next: PART III. THE CAPTURE: CHAPTER II
Read previous: PART II. THE SHORE OF REFUGE: CHAPTER VII
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