“Frightened you,” cried Madame de Warens, “why, Cléo, what is the matter with you to-night? You who are never frightened. I’m not easily frightened, but I admit I almost said my prayers in that storm, and you, you were doing embroidery.”
“Oh, I am not frightened of storms or things in the ordinary way,” said the girl half laughing. “Physical things have no power over me, an ugly face can frighten me more than the threat of a blow. It is a question of psychology. That ship produced on my mind a feeling as though I had seen desolation itself, and something worse.”
“Something worse!” cried Madame de Warens, “what can be worse than desolation?”
“I don’t know,” said Cléo, “It also made me feel that I wanted to be far away from it and from here. Then, Monsieur le Prince, with his story of desolate Kerguelen, completed the feeling. It is strong upon me now.”
“You do not wish to go to Kerguelen then?” said the Prince smiling as he helped himself to the entrée that was being passed round.
“Oh, monsieur, it is not a question of my wishes at all,” replied the girl.
“But, excuse me,” replied the owner of the Gaston de Paris, “it is entirely a question of your wishes. We are not a cargo boat, Captain Lepine is on the bridge, he has only to go into his chart house, set his course for New Amsterdam, and a turn of the wheel will put our stern to the south.” He touched an electric bell push, attached to the table, as he spoke.
“And your soundings?” asked she.
“They can wait for some other time or some other man, sea depths are pretty constant.”
A quarter-master appeared at the saloon door, came forward and saluted.