Jocelyn’s eyes followed the great, black steamer racing past. The foam was churning up from under its bows, and along its sides. She looked at it wistfully with wide eyes—the longing was not out of her yet. Nielsen fastened on the look intuitively.
“If you would marry me, you should do that or anything else that you liked,” he said suddenly, pointing to the steamer “I am not verry poor now, you know—the ‘system’ has been verry good to me lately.”
There was an earnestness in his voice, that was in strong contrast to its habitual suave flattery, and his allusion to the “system”—which, with a gambler’s superstition, he never mentioned—struck Jocelyn. She stopped and looked at him.
Yes! He was evidently in earnest; the innumerable little lines and crow’s-feet in his face, showed cruelly in the blazing sunshine; he was paler than usual, and he looked at her with almost a dog’s look in his weary brown eyes. But all she said was—
“I think you spend too much time over the ‘system’!”
She had caught sight of Giles’s figure against the rock, and she felt a sudden, physical repulsion to the man standing beside her.
“But understand,” said Nielsen, “I love you—I love you! You cannot prevent that, you know.” He put out his hands, as if to take her in his arms, and his face twitched.
“Are you mad?” she cried, hurrying past him. She walked swiftly over the hard sand, and as she went a curious feeling came upon her, a feeling of delight that was almost pain. She had forgotten Nielsen, but the words, “I love you—I love you,” kept echoing within her; they had lost all sound and form, they had become like the breath of an inspiration. All her being rose in a trembling answer. A wave of crimson rushed into her face, and as she hastened she plucked nervously at the single yellow rose fastened in her dress. Nielsen stood still, looking after her. A minute later, however, he was beside her again, talking commonplaces with his usual plaintive, imperturbable drawl, his face showing no traces of its recent emotion.
When they reached the others, Jocelyn threw herself down by her aunt, close to a group of sea-washed rocks, through the broken crevices of which the little waves were leaping and flashing like white fairies at play; and when Giles came up, two minutes later, she seemed to be listening gaily to a story Nielsen was telling.
Mrs. Travis, fanning herself, insinuated gentle complaints of the heat. She wished to see the palm gardens, where it looked shady.