"I don't know. Still, she lost the wind in the hollows. One had to keep her ahead of the seas."
Desmond laughed scornfully. "Is that it? When the boy went down with the breath knocked out of him as she took in a green sea, something came over you as you grabbed the steering oar. You went suddenly crazy, fighting crazy. You'd have rolled her over or run her under before you tied a reef in."
He stopped a moment, and made a little gesture as of one throwing something away. "Still, you'll have to give all that up when you marry and settle down, though it's a little difficult to imagine you going round in a frock coat and tight patent boots, growing fat, and overfeeding yourself like a—Strasburg goose. I suppose it is your intention to be married some day?"
"I believe it is," said Ormsgill quietly.
Desmond laid down his cigar and looked at him. "Well, I may be on dangerous ground, but when I get steam up I seldom allow a thing like that to influence me. Anyway, I've been worrying over you lately. The question is—are you going to marry the right girl, one who would take you as you are and encourage you to be more so? It isn't every woman who could put up with a man of your kind, but there are a few."
His comrade's expression might have warned another man, but Desmond went on.
"I don't know if my views are worth anything, and some of my friends doubt it, but you shall have them. After all, the matter's rather an important one. The wife for you is one who would sympathize with your notions even if she knew they were crazy ones, because they were yours, and when they led you into lumber, as such notions generally do, stand beside you smiling to face the world and the devil. There are such women. I've met one or two."
There was silence for a moment or two when he stopped, and Ormsgill, gazing straight before him with vacant eyes, saw a dark-eyed girl with dusky hair and a face of the pale ivory tint sitting where the moonlight streamed in between a colonnade of slender pillars. As it happened, Desmond saw her, too, and sighed. Then Ormsgill seemed to rouse himself.
"I am," he said, "going to marry Miss Ratcliffe, as I think you must be quite aware."
Desmond could have laughed. He fancied that it would have been almost warranted, but he laid a restraint upon himself. "Then," he said, "if you have both made up your minds and the thing is settled what in the name of wonder are you wandering about Africa for? The fact that you like it doesn't count. Why don't you go back—now—to her? It would be considerably wiser."