“Well, the men thought him rather standoffish; he snubbed some of them, I think. Well, you do meet some queer men on a liner, don’t you? And Mr Walsh said that out of business hours he claimed to choose his acquaintance. But the women all worshipped him—not that he ran after them, but his manner was always just right to them.”
“It’s really a pity his manner of life was so—well, so unconventional.”
“Yes, wasn’t it?” she said, welcoming my sympathy. “Because, of course, it meant that our acquaintance had to end with the voyage.”
I had, perhaps, been thinking of somewhat broader considerations, but I refrained from advancing them. In fact, we had somehow got away from ordinary standards and restraints; the memory of Slim-Fingered Jim had waved them away. We fell into silence for a moment or two, until I asked—
“And the manner of the end? Tell me that.”
“I didn’t believe in the end. I had got not to believe in it at all. I thought we might go on sailing for ever over that beautiful sea and having the most splendid fun. He could make you feel that everything was just splendid fun—that there was nothing else in the world. He made me feel that—I suppose he knew he could, or he’d never have told me his secret at all. But, of course, the end had to come.” She sighed and gave a little shiver—not that it was cold in the Major’s garden. Then she turned to me again. “I’ve told you a good deal,” she said, “and you’re not a chicken, are you?”
I ruefully admitted that I was no chicken.
“Then I needn’t say anything more about myself,” said she.
“And what about him?”
“I think he liked me tremendously; but he wasn’t in love.”