On deck after dinner when he looked for her she was not to be seen, so he concluded she was tired and had gone to bed, wherefore he played poker.
But Launa was not tired. She had hidden from him. His talks about his Aunt Maria had no interest for her, except when she regarded them as a narcotic, and then his musings were soothing. That evening she wanted to think and to be alone.
Her father had insisted on her drinking champagne at dinner. Mr. Archer said a voyage was exhausting, and he looked weary. He had not recovered from the surprise which his daughter’s questions had produced. Were they caused merely by curiosity—the curiosity of an ignorant girl—or by interest? Curiosity is merely an inheritance from Eve; interest is the first instinct towards a man when a woman loves him or is going to love him.
“Launa must drink champagne to-night,” he decided. “And soon we shall be in London. But why did she ask those curious questions?”
Launa took some cushions and rugs and went forward behind the boats. The steamer was surging on, the wind was rising, and the waves were breaking below with big white heads of foam. She began to think; she drew a picture of it all for herself in her mind and called herself a fool. Suppose Paul were there on the steamer, suppose he came to her with love in his eyes, and he were hers for the time—and that was it, that was what hurt—for the time, perhaps only for a time. Would she be willing to take him at the price of another woman’s shame? And to know and to remember what was between her and him, like a bar, or a hand—the warm soft hand of a woman! No, it was over. She would shut up the book. Paul was dead, her Paul, the Paul she loved—she would think of him as she did of her dead mother—sometimes. But her mother was with the angels, and Paul was alive. She shivered a little; it was cold and damp, and the swirl of the waves as the steamer rushed through them was cruel.
She resolved to begin again, to rub out the writing of the first episode of life—such a new book to her—and to make the page ready for London and fresh impressions.
When the Archers arrived in London they took a flat near the Thames Embankment, and Launa revelled in new clothes, music, and horses. Her father soon had many friends. His wee world was exciting itself about the question of bones of fish, and he flung himself with ardour into the controversy.
After some days of continual absence on his part, and loneliness on Launa’s, she went to him and said:—
“I want to know some women. I love nice women. Don’t you know some?”
He looked surprised.