“Ah! Then it can’t be anything in yourself. And if so . . . ”
I was moved to extravagant advice.
“You should come out with me to sea then. There may be some danger there but there’s nothing ugly to fear.”
She gave me a startled glance quite unusual with her, more than wonderful to me; and suddenly as though she had seen me for the first time she exclaimed in a tone of compunction:
“Oh! And there is this one, too! Why! Oh, why should he run his head into danger for those things that will all crumble into dust before long?”
I said: “You won’t crumble into dust.” And Mills chimed in:
“That young enthusiast will always have his sea.”
We were all standing up now. She kept her eyes on me, and repeated with a sort of whimsical enviousness:
“The sea! The violet sea—and he is longing to rejoin it! . . . At night! Under the stars! . . . A lovers’ meeting,” she went on, thrilling me from head to foot with those two words, accompanied by a wistful smile pointed by a suspicion of mockery. She turned away.
“And you, Monsieur Mills?” she asked.