The first time she and I approached the confidential was on an August evening when we were alone on the upper deck of the yacht. The others were in the cabin playing bridge. We had been sitting there perhaps an hour when she rose.
“Don’t go,” said I.
“I thought you wished to be alone,” said she.
“Why did you think that?”
“Your way of answering me. You’ve been almost curt.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t promise to talk if you stay. But I hate to be left alone with my thoughts.”
“I understand,” said she. And she seated herself beside the rail, and with my assistance lighted a cigarette.
There was a moon somewhere above the awning which gave us a roof. By the dim, uncertain light I could make out her features. It seemed to me she was staying as much on her own account as on mine—because she, too, wished not to be alone with her thoughts. I had not in a long time seen her in a frankly serious mood.
“How much better off a man is than a woman,” said I. “A man has his career to think about, while a woman usually has only herself.”
“Only herself,” echoed she absently. “And if one is able to think, oneself is an unsatisfactory subject.”