“Perhaps.”
“No, not perhaps, but positively. You feel at this moment that you are a big, strong man; in reality you are—Mr. Gardner Pitt.” He chuckled carelessly at the flush that came to my cheek. “I have been watching you for some seconds, Mr. Pitt; I have seen you swell and think you were growing. In your calm reason—for you can reason somewhat, Mr. Pitt—you know that you are not growing; but for the moment you have allowed your emotions to hypnotize you. You are a victim of your own emotions. For instance—” he waved his thick hand toward the aft where Chanler and Miss Baldwin now were promenading together—“you fancy that in Mr. Chanler’s partner you have been looking at something wonderful and fine. Is that not so?”
“That is so, captain.”
“Something above the common, raw, crawling stuff of life?”
“Decidedly so.”
“Something which it is not the sphere of reason to grasp, but which the emotions alone can appreciate?”
“Go on.”
He laughed unctuously.
“Then I have diagnosed your delusion accurately.”
“Are you sure it is a delusion, captain?”