“Yes.”
Her hand dropped to her lap. He looked steadily at her, with no restraint upon his expression, because her eyes were down. “Good-by,” he repeated. He waited for a reply, but none came. With that long, sure stride of his, free and graceful, he went to the stairway and descended—and departed.
XXI
ROGER WINS
La Provence was due to sail in twenty minutes. One whistle had blown; one of the gangways was casting off. Roger, with a suppressed excitement more effective than any shouting or waving of fists, was superintending the taking of his luggage from the ship. “There’s still one piece to come ashore—the old leather trunk with brass nails,” he said to the polite chief steward. “It must be found. Double your efforts and I’ll double your fee.” He turned, found himself squarely facing Beatrice Richmond.
The color flamed in his face; it vanished from hers. “You got my note?” she said. “And you are sailing anyhow?”
“I did not get your note,” replied he. “But I am not sailing.... One moment, please.” Then to the chief steward: “There is also a note for me. I must have it.”
“Parfaitement, Monsieur.” And the chief steward raced up the gangway.
Roger and Beatrice stood aside in a quiet place, a calm in the surging crowd of the voyagers and their friends. Beatrice looked at him with that fine, frank directness which had been her most conspicuous trait in all her dealings with him. Said she: “In my note I asked you to take me on any terms or on no terms. All I wish is to be near you and to love you.”
She spoke the words without any trace of emotion in either tone or manner—spoke them with a certain monotonous finality that gave them all the might of the simply genuine. And he answered in much the same way. “I am not sailing,” said he, “because—because to love you and to have you—that’s life for me. The rest isn’t worth talking about.”
“Not worth talking about,” echoed she. “I don’t know whether we’ll be happy or not, but I do know it’s my only chance to be anything but miserable.”