“Oh, don’t!” gasped Katrine painfully. “Don’t tell me! I didn’t ask.—I don’t want to hear... Don’t remind yourself—”
“Remind! Do you think I can forget? I am not harrowing myself by conjuring up sleeping ghosts. That kind of ghost never sleeps. It makes no difference to me whether I speak of it, or am silent. I have told you for—” he turned towards her with a twisted smile, “your own sake! You are a good girl, but crude. When you have had time to think for yourself, you’ll make a fine woman. You’ve been living in a shell. Let yourself go! Forget what you’ve been taught, and think things out for yourself. Meantime, I appreciate your good intentions, but—leave me alone!” Suddenly his eyes blazed. “Great Heavens! If She couldn’t help me, what can you do!”
He wheeled round and strode away, leaving Katrine to pass through some of the most poignant moments of her life. Never before had she come into such intimate touch with human misery. Compared with this anguish of remorse, Martin’s grief over the loss of his girl wife seemed a sacred and beautiful thing. Never before had she realised at once so overpowering a longing to help, and so profound a conviction of helplessness. To be of use to a soul in such straits, one must needs have suffered also, have struggled, and overcome: have risen to a height far beyond that on which she now stood. Katrine knew it, acknowledged it to her own soul, with a humility which was in itself a prayer.
She made her way to the quietest part of the deck, and leaned over the rail, trembling with emotion. Twenty-six years of placid, uneventful existence, of calm looking on at life, and then suddenly here she was, in the maelstrom, each new day bringing with it some new and poignant emotion! She felt dazed, bewildered; filled with humiliation.
When presently Bedford strolled up nonchalant and smiling, a cigarette in his mouth, his expression changed swiftly as he saw her, and Katrine flinched before his glance. Could she have seen herself she would have been astonished, as he was, at the beauty of the pale, tremulous face.
To her relief he asked no questions, but averting his eyes talked easily on matter-of-fact subjects, not waiting for replies, but content simply to fill in the time till self-possession returned. Katrine divined as much, and did not trouble to listen. She also was waiting for self-possession, but only so as to be able to confide and be comforted. That Bedford could invariably find the right panacea for a wound was a fact already acknowledged with delight, and to-night the need of him was pressing. Her inattention grew increasingly obvious, until at length he ceased speaking, and looked down at her with questioning eyes.
“You don’t want to talk! Shall I stay, and be quiet, or would you rather I went away, and left you alone?”
“Stay, please, and talk—only, for the moment my mind is so full of one thing, that I can’t think of anything else. That poor man! he’s been telling me his story.—I can’t repeat it, but he has also been scorching me for my interference. I deserved it, I suppose, for my self-sufficiency, but—it hurt! Growing pains! Do you remember?”
“Poor little girl!” he said simply; so simply, so kindly, that there could be no offence in the familiarity. “I was afraid you had given yourself a stiff road to hoe. I’ve had experience in these cases, and know something about the difficulties. The trouble is that like many reformers you are beginning at the wrong end, trying to doctor his mind, whereas it’s his body that is sick. Drink is a physical disease, and it’s hard luck on its victims that public opinion refuses to realise the fact. Imagine a fellow being called a beast—a degraded beast, disgraceful, disgusting—all the usual terms, because he was suffering from tuberculosis or heart disease! It’s unthinkable, but a poor wretch who has to fight against a physical craving as fierce as the claws of a wild beast, tearing him, literally tearing, not to be quenched except by the very poison which is going to set him craving again,—for one kindly, pitying thought, he gets a hurricane of abuse! You and I know better. We don’t judge; we pity the poor fellow from the bottom of our hearts, but I say—” suddenly his voice changed to a crisp, boylike note, “don’t let’s talk about him to-night! It’s such a ripping night. We can do him no good. Then why spoil our own time? Let’s talk about happy things!” He threw away his cigarette as he spoke, leaned his arms on the rail, and turned his face towards hers with a twinkling appeal. They were close together, and the smiling interchange of glance seemed a good and pleasant thing. Katrine was almost ashamed of the speed with which the mental load slipped away, and disappeared; one glance into the keen grey eyes, and it had vanished into space.
It was good to stand in the warm night, looking out at the glory of the star-lit heavens, at the ripple of phosphorous on the water, but the beauties of nature were but a secondary cause for the content which enfolded her. The primary cause was the presence of the man by her side, the big man with the grave face, and the clear, boylike eyes. Katrine was not given to hasty friendships, but in this case there seemed no preliminary stages to live through, for the moment of meeting had acclaimed a mental understanding, which years of intimacy might have failed to ensure. She forgot that she had been unhappy, and laughed a soft, girlish little laugh, the tinkle of which struck strangely on her own ears. Such a girlish laugh!