Again d'Alcacer managed not to interrupt his regular pacing. “Do you know what I think?” he said, abruptly. “I think, Travers, that you don't want to talk about her. I think that you don't want to talk about anything. And to tell you the truth I don't want to, either.”
D'Alcacer caught a faint sigh from the pillow and at the same time saw a small, dim flame appear outside the Cage. And still he kept on his pacing. Mrs. Travers and Lingard coming out of the deckhouse stopped just outside the door and Lingard stood the deck-lamp on its roof. They were too far from d'Alcacer to be heard, but he could make them out: Mrs. Travers, as straight as an arrow, and the heavy bulk of the man who faced her with a lowered head. He saw it in profile against the light and as if deferential in its slight droop. They were looking straight at each other. Neither of them made the slightest gesture.
“There is that in me,” Lingard murmured, deeply, “which would set my heart harder than a stone. I am King Tom, Rajah Laut, and fit to look any man hereabouts in the face. I have my name to take care of. Everything rests on that.”
“Mr. d'Alcacer would express this by saying that everything rested on honour,” commented Mrs. Travers with lips that did not tremble, though from time to time she could feel the accelerated beating of her heart.
“Call it what you like. It's something that a man needs to draw a free breath. And look!—as you see me standing before you here I care for it no longer.”
“But I do care for it,” retorted Mrs. Travers. “As you see me standing here—I do care. This is something that is your very own. You have a right to it. And I repeat I do care for it.”
“Care for something of my own,” murmured Lingard, very close to her face. “Why should you care for my rights?”
“Because,” she said, holding her ground though their foreheads were nearly touching, “because if I ever get back to my life I don't want to make it more absurd by real remorse.”
Her tone was soft and Lingard received the breath of those words like a caress on his face. D'Alcacer, in the Cage, made still another effort to keep up his pacing. He didn't want to give Mr. Travers the slightest excuse for sitting up again and looking round.
“That I should live to hear anybody say they cared anything for what was mine!” whispered Lingard. “And that it should be you—you, who have taken all hardness out of me.”