Nevertheless, she was so far responsive as to say in answer to some question of mine, “My immediate plans—”
I broke in abruptly, “Let me tell you about your immediate plans.”
As the deck was faintly illuminated, since we were again sailing with lights, I saw that change in her eyes which comes when a fire on a hearth bursts into a conflagration.
Probably my tone and the change in my manner had startled her.
“You? What?” she began, confusedly.
“I’ll tell you what your plans are; but before that let me tell you something else.”
She put up her hand. “Wait! Don’t—”
But it was too late to stop me. I couldn’t have stopped myself. I was carried on by the impetus that came from my having been so many years held back. I was no longer the consecrated servant of a cause. As for having been a drunkard and a thief, no shadow of remembrance stayed with me. I was simply a man head over heels in love with a woman, and in all sorts of stupid, stumbling phrases saying so.
She listened because she couldn’t do anything else without walking away; but she listened with a kind of aloofness. With her clasped hands resting on the rail and her little, black silhouette held quietly erect, she gazed off toward a great white star, which I suppose must have been Capella, and heard my tale because she couldn’t stop it.