Her unfairness lay in so publicly snubbing him. Her father knew the facts, as did Miss Carmichael, and the big mate, that old preacher with a mysterious past. Who was he, anyhow--setting up to regulate other people's lives?
Then rose among these turbulent thoughts a picture of the princess as she was now, there in the social hall. Tears welled into his eyes; he brushed them away, lighted a fresh cigarette and deeply inhaled the smoke. He had rushed out; suddenly, wildly, he desired to rush back. She was beautiful. She had quaintly moving charm. A rare little lady! It seemed almost that he might compel her to listen while he explained. But what was it that he was to explain? That he was some other than the dirty sort they all knew him to be, that he had proved himself to be?
The wild thoughts were like a beating in his brain. It was his father's fault, this crazy nervousness, and his mother's.... He hated that big mate. Self-pity rose like a tidal wave, and engulfed him. He stared and stared at the softly dark water. Beginning with about his sixteenth year he had wrestled often with the thought of suicide, as so many sensitive young men do. Now the water fascinated him; it was so still, it moved so resistlessly on to the sea. “A pretty easy way to slip out. Just a little splash---I could climb down. Nobody'd know. Nobody'd care much of a damn. Oh, the old man would think he cared, but he wouldn't. He'll never make a bank president out of me. And that's all he wants.”
A voice, guardedly friendly, said, “Better not let yourself talk that way.”
He turned with a start. Miss Carmichael was standing there by the rail. So he had talked aloud--another unpleasant symptom.
She inclined her head. “What's the good of letting it upset you? Lie down for a while. A pipe or two wouldn't hurt you. You're nervous as a witch. It would soothe you.” He stared at her.
“Better lie down anyway,” she said, taking his arm and moving him toward his cabin. “You don't want them to see you like this.”
He yielded. His will was powerless. He dropped on the seat, while she lingered, almost sympathetically, in the doorway, an unbelievably girlish figure in the half light. Something of the influence she had been exerting on him--which had seemed to die when Miss Hui Fei entered the social hall--fluttered to life now. He found relief, abruptly, in recklessness.