She too showed traces of the struggle. There was a tired, wistful look about the eyes, the suspicion of a melancholy droop at the corners of the mouth, which imparted to her face a very different expression to that of the self-loving, self-indulgent, and rather heartless Mona whom he had first beheld reclining easily, sensuously, in her hammock under the green willows at Quaggasfontein, now more than a year ago. Had she too suffered? Why then had she been found so lamentably wanting when put to the ordeal? Surely a nature which had proved so weak could have no great capacity for suffering, at any rate, for any length of time. No, it was all a most miserable mistake, all too late. This wonderfully unexpected meeting had shaken him more than he cared to allow. The wound, barely skinned over during these six months or so, now broke open again and bled afresh—bled copiously. More careless, more terse became the tone of his conversation, and beneath it lurked a biting cynical sting, as of the lash of a whip.—Not altogether could his glance refrain from that royally moulded form opposite him, and meeting the tender, wistful appeal of those clear hazel eyes, there shot from his own a flash as of contempt too deep even for resentment. Thus did he arm, fence himself against his own weakness.
The dinner was over at last, and several of the ladies were already leaving the saloon. Mona rose.
“I think I will go on deck for a little,” she said. “Is this delicious smooth weather going to continue, Captain Cheyne? I am a most wretched sailor.”
The captain responded gallantly that he devoutly trusted it would, and she left them. And now that her presence was withdrawn, it seemed to Roden that a blank had fallen. Yet he had but to ascend the companion stairs. It seemed to him that her very announcement embodied an invitation. Still he remained as firmly fixed in his seat as though nailed there. And nailed there he was—by the long, jagged, rusty, and passingly strong iron of an unbending pride. She had turned from him once; was he to go begging to her feet now? No—no. A thousand times, no.
“Nice girl, isn’t she?” said Cheyne, reseating himself and refilling Roden’s glass. “Fine-looking girl, too.”
“She seems alone. Is she under your charge?”
“Not exactly that. She came on board at Port Elizabeth, and I made them put her place next me here at the table. When I got your letter saying you were going to join us at Cape Town, I moved those other people a place up. At any rate, we’ll have a snug corner for the voyage, eh?”
Another surprise was in store for Roden. A group of male passengers who had occupied places at the far end of the saloon was passing them on the way out. Before he could reply his glance was attracted by the face of one of these. It was that of Lambert.
Their glances met. Far less under the control of his feelings than the other the young surgeon gave a violent start, and a half-uttered exclamation escaped him as he met the indifferent, contemptuous gaze of the man whom he had injured. But quickly recovering himself, he passed out with the others.
Lambert, of all people in the world! What on earth was the fellow doing here on board? Oh, the reason was not far to seek, he thought, in derisive pity for his own weakness, with which during the last hour he had been so exhaustively battling. And yet things didn’t seem to fit in, for here was Mona sitting alone at the captain’s table, while Lambert was right away at the other end of the saloon. That was not the explanation. It might be a coincidence that the two were on board together, just as his own presence there was. As before at Doppersdorp, so now, Lambert did not count for anything in the affair.