When the Dom Pedro had been on the high seas not more than a week, Letitia was forced to the sorrowful conclusion that Friedrich Pestel was not the right man for her.
She desired a man of imaginative ardour and impassioned soul. In face of the unending sea and the starry vault of heaven, a fadeless yearning had reawakened in her, and she told Pestel frankly and honestly that she could not be happy with him. Pestel was overwhelmed with amazement. He did not answer, and became melancholy.
Among the passengers there was an Austrian engineer who had been building railroads in Peru and was on his way home. His boldly romantic appearance and happy faculty of anecdote delighted Letitia. She could not let him perceive it on account of the other passengers who took her to be Pestel’s wife. But the engineer, who was something of an adventurer and courageous, had his own thoughts.
In spite of his genuine pain and disappointment, Pestel reproached himself for having bought the expensive first-cabin tickets for Letitia, the nurse, and the twins, and a second-cabin passage for the Indian boy, out of his own pocket. In addition he had, just before their departure and in all haste, bought several frocks and some linen for the woman whom he had saved from captivity, and to whom, as he thought, he was about to be united for life.
The Indian boy was sea-sick and also home-sick, and Letitia promised to send him back to the Argentine from Genoa.
Among the other passengers who regarded Letitia with a vivid eye was an American journalist who had spent several months in Brazil. He was witty, wrote clever verses, organized parties and dances, and soon seemed as charming to Letitia as the Austrian engineer. Between these two little skirmishes of jealousy took place, and each felt the other to be an obstacle.
One night they were the last guests at the bar; neither wanted to turn in, and they agreed to throw dice for a bottle of claret.
The Austrian lost.
The bottle arrived. The American filled the glasses; they drank, leaned back and smoked, looked searchingly at each other from time to time, and said nothing.
Suddenly the Yankee, still holding his pipe between his teeth, said: “Nice woman.”