"Whenever a man seizes me in anger I never struggle," she has often said to me. "A physical broil between a man and a woman must always end to the discomfiture of the woman. To the greater power of a man I oppose exaggerated feminine weakness."
With muscles deliberately limp, she stood against the wall in Willie's grip, her breast rising and falling quietly, her cold, fearless eyes holding him immovably. He approached his face to hers until each could see the tiny reflection of self in the other's pupils. Willie's breath, charged with the fumes of bad and fiery port, beat upon Madame's senses. She suffered from a momentary nausea, but the steadiness of her gaze continued unabated.
He was trying to beat her down with the power of his eyes, but, just then, they had no charm for Madame Gilbert. They were no longer the eyes of Willatopy before whose radiance her heart had often melted; they were the drink-suffused eyes of Lord Topsham, an enemy. She put forth all her moral energy, and stared him into disquiet. And when his eyelids began to blink and flicker, she knew that she had won. The savage light died out, and he released her elbows. He stepped back, and she was free. Still calm, she bowed slightly as one bidding farewell to a distant acquaintance, and walked slowly towards her own door. With the snap of her drawn bolt the spell broke, and Willie also moved away. He felt humiliated, as one who had suffered defeat. As he had stood there facing Madame, there had come upon him a savage lust to fasten his talons in the beautiful white throat, and to choke the cold light of scorn out of her lovely eyes. But he could not do it. He had spurned her, and felt that he hated her, but there still remained for him about her something of the aura of a goddess.
Madame was very thoughtful as Marie undressed her that evening. She said nothing to the girl, for she had perceived her attempts to repulse Lord Topsham. She had confidence in Marie's terrors if not in her virtue. But the brief contest of wills without had made a deep impression. She perceived that the struggle for mastery between the half-savage boy and herself had begun seriously. As the wise man Grant had predicted, the boy was growing into a peril. She had beaten him once in the tense silent battle of eyes, but could she always reckon upon time and opportunity within which to achieve another victory? Madame lay deep in thought upon her bed, and fingered delicately the butt of that faithful companion which now always slept beside her.
A couple of hours later, while she still lay sleepless, a loud noise of shouting and singing arose from the cabin opposite. Willie and John Clifford had been broaching the cases of sweet fiery port, and had become drunkenly exuberant This was, I believe, the first time that Willie had passed over the alcoholic border into actual intoxication. Madame listened to the unseemly racket, which resounded now through the silent anchored ship, and again toyed with the automatic.
"Drink and Lust and explosive half-blood," murmured she. "The blood of Old Devon and of savage Melanesia. I wonder what the end of it all will be."
That end came with appalling suddenness, without warning or preparation. Madame alone in the ship was ready, for she who had for five years lived amid quick storms and unheralded perils was always ready. For three days the yacht had been steaming slowly up towards the Straits of Sunda. Willie in public had been surly and reserved; he had not again fallen upon the apprehensive Marie—too intently busied upon working out her reprieve to relax in favour towards him—and had shown no overt hostility to Madame. Every night he had drunk deeply with John Clifford, and the noise of their joint libations had disturbed Madame Gilbert's rest. The once healthy boy, splendid in his tireless virility, was degenerating fast. From day to day the decline could be seen in the greyness of his face, and in the tremor of his strong thin fingers. The shoes which he insisted upon wearing crippled his free movements. Once conspicuously elastic of tread—he had seemed to move on steel springs—he now slouched and shuffled. Madame never saw Clifford, but she heard his voice nightly in the cabin opposite, and I am sure that she ached to slay him. She longed for Singapore, and for the final expulsion of the Hedge Lawyer, who was responsible for the woes of a once happy Toppys yacht, and of the once happy Tops Island. He was working fast for Willie's destruction, but he did not understand the explosive material with which he worked. In the end he lost—at the moment when it seemed to his narrow intelligence that the white slave had become the white master.
It was after midnight, Madame was abed, and for once the potations of the drinkers did not culminate in a noise which disturbed her sleep. For once Willie had dismissed Clifford at an early hour, and bent himself to carry out his own delayed yet cherished schemes. Something of the cunning of the white man had tempered the desires of the savage; he had deliberately ceased to pursue Marie, and thought to dim the bright polish of Madame's unfailing watchfulness.
Nothing was to be heard that night save the whirr of the high-speed turbines, and nothing to be felt except the quivering vibration of the yacht's frames. Although the cabin opposite was unwontedly quiet, Madame Gilbert did not sleep. The change from noise to silence oppressed her. She was more wakeful and watchful than she had been for some days; she had learned that the unexpected always happens and she was waiting, apprehensively, for the violently unexpected. She did not, as Grant had advised, pass her days and nights in deadly fear—it was no strange experience for her to watch and wait with that faithful companion within grip of her fingers—but both her days and nights were brimful of apprehension and sorrow. She had faintly hoped that the old spirit of Willatopy would revive when the well-beloved seas girt him about, and his feet trod the decks of a ship. She had hoped that the salt of the sea would call irresistibly to the salt in his blood. But the strong, rich drinks of Thursday Island were more potent than any sea salt. Willatopy was gone for ever. There remained a visibly degenerating Lord Topsham.
Suddenly she heard the soft closing of a door. The sound was quite near. She sat up and listened. A faint light, reflected from the sea, came through her cabin scuttles; she could make out the closed doors of her room—the bathroom door behind her, Marie's door in front, and that other which led into the corridor at her right. Her rooms were on the port side of the main deck. But though the upper part of the cabin was faintly illuminated, the deck lay in the deepest shadow.