Jerome had a strong feeling of unreality. The news stabbed him with amazement. Yet after all it was only simple and natural that news of her at last should fall from the Captain’s lips. He found himself musing in many moods.
“What in the world do you suppose they can be doing ’way off here?” asked Elsa the next afternoon, as she and Jerome sat together under a bit of awning aft. “Did you hear the Captain say what island it is?”
“No. He said the Chagos group. I’m trying to recall what’s raised there.”
“Guava, I suppose,” said Elsa. “Or copra.”
“Mr. King must have been put in charge of some business. Perhaps he oversees output from the whole archipelago,” remarked Jerome with somewhat expansive generosity.
“Like a prince, in a way, didn’t you always think him?” ventured Elsa, her eyes darting toward him for a moment, but her expression otherwise supremely uncompromising.
“I’m afraid I’m hardly a judge of princes,” Jerome fenced back.
“Well, I mean—a sort of fabulous prince, you know,” she persisted. “Almost too good to be true.” Jerome laughed easily, and she went on: “His beauty, as I recollect it, was of that tremendous sort that leaves the whole world gasping as it passes by. I was conscious of it in church, during the ceremony.” And she added: “Were you there?” with another of her little exploring darts.
“At the church? Yes,” he answered carelessly. “I slipped in at the last minute, and stayed well back.”
Elsa gazed at him fixedly a moment, then observed: “Mr. King always reminded me a little of some Roman emperor, though which one I never figured out. Then he’s struck me as perhaps Apollo, with the soul of Sir Willoughby!” She laughed.