Captain Jean was about five feet in height and he seemed five feet in thickness. He was propped against a bollard and he was in his shore-going clothes. The girl’s eye told her at once that here was a useful man, a man of authority and knowledge. She approached him, and as he took his pipe from his mouth and removed his cap, she opened her business without parley or hesitation.
She wanted to buy or hire a fishing boat, price no object.
He did not understand her at first. He seemed suffering from some form of deafness. Then when she repeated the statement he shewed no surprise.
He himself was a fishing boat owner, Captain Bontemps of the Arlesienne, and he was quite willing to sell his boat, for a sum—two thousand pounds he asked, and she did not know that he was speaking in jest, just as one might speak to a child.
“If your boat suits me, I will pay what you ask,” said she, “let me see it.”
Then it came upon Captain Jean that he was either talking to a lunatic or some wealthy woman with a craze. His sails were taken aback and he was left wallowing in a heavy ground sea of the mind with a smell of spice islands tinging the air.
La Belle Arlesienne, his old boat, was not worth a thousand pounds. Under the hammer heaven knows what she would have fetched, but she was his wife, or the only female thing that stood in that relationship to him. He tapped the dottle out of his pipe, then he took a pouch from his pocket and began to refill and the girl, seeing his condition, drew him aside, asking Raft to wait for her.
They went to another bollard and there, the mariner anchoring himself, she began to talk. She introduced herself. He knew all about the Gaston de Paris and Mademoiselle de Bromsart. He put his pipe in his pocket, finding himself in such famous company. She went on. In ten minutes she told him her whole story, told him just what Raft was and just how they stood related, and just how he had been treated in the hotel.
“It’s as though they had turned out my father or my brother,” said she, “we two who have fought and faced everything together have grown into companions. Friends who cannot be parted, Captain Bontemps. If he were a woman or I a man it would be easier. As it is things are difficult. Well, I do not care. I will do exactly as I like. I feel you will be my friend, too; you understand me. And I want you to look after him to-night, for in the whole of Marseilles I do not know where he could go unless to some wretched Sailors’ Home or worse. Ah, it is wicked. Of what use is it to be brave, to be honest, to be true in this world?”
“Mon Dieu,” said the Captain, “I will look after him, if for no other reason than that he is what you say, mademoiselle; but La Belle Arlesienne is rough, should you use her as a yacht, you would not find her a yacht. She smells of fish—”