How different was her own life! Sailing along on this splendid ship, with perfect weather and ideal surroundings, the world seemed to exist only to afford her pleasure. If the sun shone brightly, it was only to give her joy; if the soft winds blew, it was only to caress her cheek. It seemed unjust. Things were not equal. At times she was sorry that her father was so rich. Had he been poor, she would have had an incentive to work hard and do something. Although she had everything she desired, she was not really happy. She felt there was something wanting, and she thought it was because her life lacked a definite aim. Other girls did things—they painted pictures, wrote books, went on the stage. If her father became bankrupt to-morrow, where would she be? A perfectly useless member of society, ornamental, possibly, but quite useless. Only two alternatives would be open to her—either to seek some humble employment or throw herself in the arms of a rich man. She would not be the first victim of the plutocracy which closes the doors of the liberal professions to its daughters, only to throw them, in the hour of adversity, into the palsied arms of the roué and the voluptuary.
Like most American girls, Grace had little to learn in regard to life's fundamentals. She had read all the decadent novelists, from D'Aununzio to Eleanor Glyn, and the daily newspapers, coupled with whispered conversations over five-o'clock teas, had speedily shattered what other illusions had been left over from her school-days. The low moral standard of the set in which she moved had made her cynical in her attitude toward the men who courted her. She had a horror of fortune-hunters, and most of the men who had paid her attention, Prince Sergius and the rest, she suspected of being after her money. Yet she must marry some day. She must find a husband, even if she were not to love him. A married woman is able to take a place in society that is denied the single woman. Marry she must, but whom? The men she knew either bored her or disgusted her. He need not be a rich man, for she had enough for both, yet if a poor man presented himself, she would certainly put him in the fortune-hunting class. As she had told her friend, Mrs. Stuart, a man with a proud title would suit her best. There would be no question of love, of course, only self-interest on both sides. He would furnish the coronet, she the dollars. It would be the mariage de convenance, with its hypocrisies, its lies, its miseries.
She wondered if her attitude toward life were wrong, if really there were not a man somewhere whom a woman could respect and admire for his strength, his bravery, his nobility of character. The old-fashioned authors—the Dumas, the Scotts, the Bulwer Lyttons, the Elliots—presented such men as their heroes. Were there no such men left in the world to-day? Or were the writers of modern fiction right when they depicted the men of to-day as fortune-hunters, egotistical coxcombs, conscienceless libertines, deliberate destroyers of women's virtue? Cynical as the reading of unwholesome books and witnessing salacious plays had made her, Grace had still a little of the romantic left in her. She was still healthy-minded enough to find romance more satisfying than the vulgar realism of the modern risqué novel. And as she lay there in her chair, basking in the warm sunshine, her eyes half closed, she abandoned herself momentarily to the sensuousness of the moment.
In her imagination gradually took form the ideal hero her heart craved for. She was resting on a country road, and a man was approaching. He was tall, with dark, wavy hair and smooth face, and the clean-cut features of a Greek god. He knew she was rich, but he cared not, for he despised mere wealth, and he was about to pass by unheeding, when he chanced to notice her face, which pleased his sense of beauty. He stopped wondering, and, chatting with her, marveled at the liquid splendor of her eyes. This was the woman he had sought, the woman for whom he would toil and fight. He took her hand, and at his touch her heart leaped ecstatically. A strange thrill stirred her as he gazed hungrily into her eyes and gently drew her to him. Timidly she yielded to his ardent embrace, and as he clasped her soft form roughly to his strong breast and his warm lips met hers in a deep, lingering kiss that seemed to aspire her very soul, a sensation she had never known before invaded her entire being. She felt as though she would swoon.
"Aren't you getting hungry, Grace? Whatever are you so engrossed about?" said Mrs. Stuart petulantly.
The interruption was so sudden and abrupt that Grace was startled, and it was with some confusion that she replied:
"Just thinking—that's all! This weather actually makes one foolish."
"Good morning, ladies!"
A shadow suddenly shut out the glare of the sun. Grace and Mrs. Stuart looked up. It was Captain Summers, who was walking the deck with Professor Hanson. The Atlanta's commander was a typical sea-dog, big, broad-shouldered, with a deep bass voice and a face tanned by exposure to all sorts of weather. Contrasted with Professor Hanson, a nervous little man, with a bald, domelike cranium, he looked like a giant. Like most Englishmen, he was frigid in manner and not too amiable in his intercourse with the passengers. But Grace, Mrs. Stuart, and the professor happened to sit at his table, which made a difference. For them he condescended to unbend. He was not blind to the fact that Grace was an uncommonly good-looking girl, and Mrs. Stuart amused him. Touching his cap, he sank into the empty seat on the other side of Grace, while Professor Hanson drew up another chair.
"How long can we expect this glorious weather to last, captain?" asked Mrs. Stuart, greeting the commander's salute with a gracious smile.