“You mean to say that man is composed entirely of environment, past and present?”
“Yes, monsieur, you have caught my meaning exactly. Past and present. Man is nothing more than a concretion formed from emanations of all the objects whose emanations have impinged upon living tissue since, at the beginning of the world, living tissue was formed. He is the sunset he saw a million years ago, the water he swam in when he was a fish, the knight in armour he fought with when he was an ancestor, or rather he is a concretion of the light, touch and sound vibrations from these and a million other things. I have written the matter fully out in a thesis, which I hope to publish some day.”
“Well, you may put my name down for a dozen copies,” said the Prince, “for certainly the theory is less mad than some of the theories I have come across explaining the origin of mind.”
“But what has all that to do with the ship?” asked Madame de Warens.
“Simply, madame, that the ship which one looked at as a structure of canvas and wood, once seen by Mademoiselle de Bromsart, has become part of her mind, just as it has become part of yours and mine, a logical and definite part of our minds; now, mark me, there was also the sunset and the storm clouds, those objects also became part of the mind of Mademoiselle de Bromsart, and the reasons interlying between all these objects produced in her a definite and painful impression. They were, in fact, all thinking something which she interpreted.”
“It seemed to me,” said the girl, “that I saw Loneliness itself, and for the first time, and I felt just now that it was following me. It was to escape from that absurd phantom that I suggested to Monsieur le Prince that we should alter our course.”
“Well,” said Madame de Warens, “your will has conquered the Phantom. Let us talk of something more cheerful.”
“Listen!” said Mademoiselle de Bromsart. “It seems to me that the engines are going slower.”
“You have a quick ear, mademoiselle,” said the Prince, “they undoubtedly are. The Captain has reduced speed. Kerguelen is before us, or rather on our starboard bow, and daybreak will, no doubt, give us a view of it. We do not want to be too close to it in the dark hours, that is why speed has been reduced.”
Coffee was served at table and presently, amidst the fumes of cigarette smoke, the conversation turned to politics, the works of Anatole France, and other absorbing subjects. One might have fancied oneself in Paris but for the vibrations of the propeller, the heave of the sea, and the hundred little noises that mark the passage of a ship under way.
Later Mademoiselle de Bromsart found herself in the smoking-room alone with her host, Madame de Warens having retired to her state-room and the others gone on deck.
The girl was doing some embroidery work which she had fetched from her cabin and the Prince was glancing at the pages of the Revue des Deux Mondes. Presently he laid the book down.
“I was in earnest,” said he.
“How?” she asked, glancing up from her work.
“When I proposed altering the course. Nothing would please me more than to spoil a plan of my own to please you.”
“It is good of you to say that,” she replied, “all the same I am glad I did not spoil your plan, not so much for your sake as my own.”
“How?”
“I would rather die than run away from danger.”
“So you feared danger?”
“No, I did not fear it, but I felt it. I felt a premonition of danger. I did not say so at dinner. I did not want to alarm the others.”
He looked at her curiously for a moment, contrasting her fragility and beauty with the something unbendable that was her spirit, her soul—call it what you will.
“Well,” said he, “your slightest wish is my law. I have been going to speak to you for the last few days. I will say what I want to say now. It is only four words. Will you marry me?”
She looked up at him, meeting his eyes full and straight.
“No,” said she, “it is impossible.”
“Why?”
“I have a very great regard for you—but—”
“You do not love me?”
She said nothing, going on with her work calmly as though the conversation was about some ordinary topic.
“I don’t see why you should,” he went on, “but look around you—how many people marry for love now-a-days—and those who do, are they any the happier? I have seen a very great deal of the world and I know for a fact that happiness in marriage has little to do with what the poets call love and everything to do with companionship. If a man and woman are good companions then they are happy together, if not they are miserable, no matter how much they may love one another at the start.”
“Have you seen much of the world?” she raised her eyes again as she asked the question. “Have you seen anything really of the world? I do not mean to be rude, but this world of ours, this world of society that holds us all, is there anything real about it, since nearly everything in it is a sham? Look at the lives we lead, look at Paris and London and Berlin. Why the very language of society is framed to say things we do not mean.”
“It is civilization. How else would you have it?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, “but I do know it is not life. It is dishonesty. You say that the only happy married people are those that are good companions, that love does not count in the long run, and you are right, perhaps, as far as what you call the World is concerned. I only repeat that the thing you call the World is not the real world, for love is real, and love is not merely a question of good companionship. It is an immortal bond between two spirits and death cannot break it.”
“You speak as though you were very certain of a thing which, of all things, is most hidden from us.”
“I speak by instinct.”
“Well,” said the Prince, “perhaps you are right. We have left behind us the simplicity of the old world, we have become artificial, our life is a sham—but what would you have and how are we to alter it? We are all like passengers in a train travelling to heaven knows where; the seats are well cushioned and the dining-car leaves nothing to be desired, but I admit the atmosphere is stuffy and the long journey has developed all sorts of unpleasant traits among the passengers—well, what would you do? We cannot get out.”
“I suppose not,” said she.
He rose up and stood for a moment turning over some magazines lying on the table. He had received his answer and he knew instinctively that it was useless to pursue the business further.
Then after a few more words he went on deck. The wind had fallen to a steady blow but the sky was still overcast and the atmosphere was heavy and clammy and not consistent. It was as though the low lying clouds dipped here and there to touch the sea. Every now and then the Gaston de Paris would run into a wreath of fog and pass through it into the clear darkness of the night beyond.
In the darkness aft of the bridge nothing could be seen but the pale hint of the bridge canvas and a trace of spars and funnels now wiped out with mist, now visible again against the night.
The Prince leaned on the weather rail and looked over at the tumble and sud of the water lit here and there with the gleam of a port light.
Cléo de Bromsart had fascinated him, grown upon him, compelled him in some mysterious way to ask her to marry him. He had sworn after his disastrous first experience never to marry again. He had attempted to break his oath. Was he in love with her? He could scarcely answer that question himself. But this he knew, that her refusal of him and the words she had said were filling his mind with quite new ideas.
Was