“I thought so. I suppose he never knew that you and I used to—well, to know each other, before I lost my money.”
“He never spoke of that.”
“No difference, unless all for the better, for I shall, now, never give you up to any man on earth.”
“And I thought you the best product of our civilization, a man of education, of breeding.”
“No, not breeding, unless savagery gives it. I’m civilized no longer. When you stand near me, and your hair—go below, Helena! Go at once!”
She turned, moved slowly toward her door.
I finished calmly as I could. “To-morrow, at eleven, I shall give you an audience here on the deck. We shall have time. This is a wilderness. You can not get away, and I hope no one will find you. That is my risk. And oh! Helena,” I added, suddenly, feeling my heart soften at the pallor of her face—“Oh, Helena, Helena, try to think gently of me as you can, for all these miles I have followed after you; and all these years I have thought of you. You do not know—you do not know! It has been one long agony. Now go, please. I promise to keep myself as courteous as I can. You and I and Aunt Lucinda will just have a pleasant voyage together until—until that time. Try to be kind to me, Helena, as I shall try to be with you.”
Silent, unsmiling, she disappeared beyond her cabin door, nor would she eat dinner even in her cabin, although Aunt Lucinda did; and found the ninety-three was helping her neuralgia.
I know not if they slept, but I slept not at all. The shadows hung black about us as we lay at anchor four miles inland, silent, and with no lights burning to betray us. Now and again, I could hear faint voices of the night, betimes croakings, splashings in the black water about us. It was as though the jungle had enclosed us, deep and secret-keeping. And in my heart the fierce fever of the jungle’s teachings burned, so that I might not sleep.
But in the morning Helena was fresh, all in white, and with no more than a faint blue of shadow beneath her eyes. She honored us at breakfast, and made no manner of reference to what had gone on the evening before. This, then, I saw, was to be our modus vivendi; convention, the social customs we all had known, the art, the gloss, the veneer of life, as life runs on in society as we have organized it! Ah, she fought cunningly!