He nodded. While she was speaking he thought of the andante appassionato comparison. Music always—she was that to him.
"Uncharted seas!" she repeated. "They've always lured me. I felt the call, but couldn't understand it until I read a tale several years ago. 'The White Waterfall' it was called. It seemed to open magic doors. After that, 'Treasure Island' again, and 'She.' Stevenson, Kipling, Conrad and Haggard—they are the masters that taught me the doctrine of Romance and Adventure. Oh, I've always wanted a crowded hour—excitement—the sting of winds not in books! I think after one excursion into the reality I'd be willing to settle back into my peaceful alcove of imaginings. Then I'd have food for my fancies—something to remember in the quiet that followed. Don't you think it would be alluring, in mellower years, to close your eyes and dream—of wanderings in the 'Caves of Kor'—or the time you spent on a pirate island?"
"It's youth," he philosophized to himself. "Youth craving the open spaces; hours of breathless living!"
"It would," he said aloud.
"But perhaps"—her voice sank to a dreamy tempo—"perhaps I'm having my adventure now."
(And many days passed before he understood what she really meant by that.)
Below them, in the steerage, a snake-charmer—a villainous-looking fellow with a scar across one cheek and a drooping eyelid—was making two cobras ripple to the sounds of a reed flageolet. The eerie, tuneless wails were reminiscent of the previous night when Trent stood on the same spot and looked below.
"What would you think, Mr. Tavernake," the girl began, her voice very solemn, "if you discovered that some one whom you trusted and believed your friend was secretly striving for the thing you were working for. Would you call it fair competition?"
He applied a match to his burnt-out pipe, then regarded her—quite as intently as she regarded him.
"Are you making me father-confessor, after all?"