“I am not afraid of what people think. I don’t care what the Kennedys may say if I leave the ship at Brindisi and go with you. Of course it will be a sad downfall for me. They would look on me as a lost woman from that moment. But I care nothing about that. I have long been cured of the foolish idea that we must sacrifice our happiness to what the world may say.”
Of course Heideck refused to take her words seriously. He did not believe she meant to accompany him to the field, and seized the opportunity of making a proposal which he had already carefully considered.
“I should think the best thing for you to do, my dear Edith, would be to go to my uncle at Hamburg and stay there till the war is over. Then—if Heaven spare my life—there will be nothing to prevent our union.”
As she made no answer Heideck, who wanted to give her time to think, hastened to turn the conversation.
“Look how beautiful it is!” he said, pointing to the water.
A long succession of white, foaming waves kept pace with the vessel on either side. The keel seemed to be cutting its way through a number of tiny cliffs, over which the sea was breaking. But closer inspection showed that they were no cliffs, but countless shoals of large fish, swimming alongside the ship, as if in order of battle. From time to time they leaped high out of the water, their bright, scaly bodies glistening in the sun.
“I should like to be one of those dolphins,” said Edith. “Look, how free they are! how they enjoy life!”
“You believe in the transmigration of souls?” said Heideck jestingly; “perhaps you have once been such a dolphin yourself.”
“Then certainly I have made no change for the better. There is no doubt that our higher intellectual development prevents us from properly enjoying our natural existence. But it teaches us to feel more deeply the sorrows, which are far more numerous than the joys of human life.”
. . . . . . .