CHAPTER III
On our return from that expedition we came gliding into the old harbour so late that Dominic and I, making for the café kept by Madame Léonore, found it empty of customers, except for two rather sinister fellows playing cards together at a corner table near the door. The first thing done by Madame Léonore was to put her hands on Dominic’s shoulders and look at arm’s length into the eyes of that man of audacious deeds and wild stratagems who smiled straight at her from under his heavy and, at that time, uncurled moustaches.
Indeed we didn’t present a neat appearance, our faces unshaven, with the traces of dried salt sprays on our smarting skins and the sleeplessness of full forty hours filming our eyes. At least it was so with me who saw as through a mist Madame Léonore moving with her mature nonchalant grace, setting before us wine and glasses with a faint swish of her ample black skirt. Under the elaborate structure of black hair her jet-black eyes sparkled like good-humoured stars and even I could see that she was tremendously excited at having this lawless wanderer Dominic within her reach and as it were in her power. Presently she sat down by us, touched lightly Dominic’s curly head silvered on the temples (she couldn’t really help it), gazed at me for a while with a quizzical smile, observed that I looked very tired, and asked Dominic whether for all that I was likely to sleep soundly to-night.
“I don’t know,” said Dominic, “He’s young. And there is always the chance of dreams.”
“What do you men dream of in those little barques of yours tossing for months on the water?”
“Mostly of nothing,” said Dominic. “But it has happened to me to dream of furious fights.”
“And of furious loves, too, no doubt,” she caught him up in a mocking voice.
“No, that’s for the waking hours,” Dominic drawled, basking sleepily with his head between his hands in her ardent gaze. “The waking hours are longer.”
“They must be, at sea,” she said, never taking her eyes off him. “But I suppose you do talk of your loves sometimes.”
“You may be sure, Madame Léonore,” I interjected, noticing the hoarseness of my voice, “that you at any rate are talked about a lot at sea.”