Before she could stop herself she was out of the cabin; she did not stop to think that Louis might be embarrassed: she dashed into his cabin. He was fastening his tie.
"Louis," she cried, and stopped breathless. He seemed very different as she looked over his shoulder into the mirror. Cold water had removed the traces of a week's neglect; the razor had done a good deal, too, and a clean suit had transformed him. His eyes were different: there was a light of resolution in them and they met hers direct. She scarcely knew him.
"Hello!" he said and let the tie hang as he stared at her.
"Where's the other man who used to sleep in here?" she asked. That was not what she had intended to say when she came in.
"He's gone. He was on the way to Cairo. I've got it to myself now."
"Marcella," he said solemnly. "You really mean it? You're not going to let me down? Violet let me down--and I'm always letting people down. I can't trust people now."
"Supposing I'd wanted to marry Violet, I'd have married her," she said, her brow puckered. "And I wouldn't _be_ let down."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't," he said, slowly.
"Louis--" she began again, breathlessly, and then let the words out in a torrent. "Louis, I _know_ I've got to marry you. Do you understand that? It's--it's inevitable. It was from the minute I met you. You'll never understand that, not being a Kelt, though. I know it quite well. And I'm afraid I'm going to shy at it. And, for my sake as well as yours, I've not to shy. Louis, will you grab me tight?"
He stared at her, utterly at a loss. He did not begin to grasp what she meant. To him she was just "fickle woman" always changing her mind. He had, all his life, generalized about woman; he had never known a woman who was not rather vapid, rather brainless; he had the same idea of women as Professor Kraill had ventilated in his lectures--that they were the vehicles of the race, living for the race but getting all the fun they could out of the preliminary canter, since the race was a rather strenuous, rather joyless thing for them. And it was in men they found the fun. Yet here was Marcella, who was quite different from anything feminine he had ever seen or imagined, suddenly appealing to him not to let her be fickle. Immediately he felt very manly, very responsible. Then he laughed.