The weather had been clear and mild up to this time; but this evening an icy sleet was beginning to fall, and I glanced at mademoiselle's cabin window, brightly lighted and eloquent of warmth and dryness, and fetched a great sigh as I looked. A voice at my elbow said:
"Monsieur is sad?—or lonely, perhaps?"
I started, for I had supposed myself entirely alone on that end of the boat—the men all busy with their tying-up preparations forward, and mademoiselle and the captain in the cabin. I lifted my hat and bowed ceremoniously.
"Neither, Mademoiselle."
Mademoiselle hesitated. I saw she felt repulsed, and I secretly gloried in her embarrassment. Neither would I help her out by adding another word; I waited for what she might say further.
"Monsieur," she said presently, "you have shown me much kindness in the past, and done me great service. I would like to have you know that I am not ungrateful."
"I do not desire your gratitude, Mademoiselle," I said coldly (though it hurt me to speak so when she was so evidently trying to be friendly with me). "No gentleman could have done less, even if he were not a French gentleman."
The light from her cabin window fell full upon her. I could see that she colored quickly at my retort, and half started to go away, but turned back again.
"Monsieur," she said earnestly, "I have a very humble apology to make to you. I hope you will forgive me for my rude and wicked speech. I was beside myself with sorrow at the thought of being so suddenly torn from my friends, and for the time nothing else weighed with me, not even that you had just saved my life at the peril of your own. Ah, how could I have been so base! I wonder not that you will not even look at so mean a creature, and you do well to shun her as if she were vile."
No man could have resisted her sweet humility. For a moment all my anger melted.