"You started it in me."
Paul looked over his shoulder at the sea. After a considerable silence he said:
"I wonder how many came through?"
The question was addressed to the sea as much as it was to Emily. She shuddered.
"Here!" he exclaimed brusquely. "What are we doing? There is Polaris up there smiling at you, my lady."
His face was lit with a wonderful smile as he spoke. It drove the gloom from her mind which their reference to the Cambodia had produced. Soon they were off on an expedition to the stars, each in turn naming one and identifying its bearings. Paul had introduced Emily to this "game" the second night on the island, and then as now they lost themselves in it in a childish delight. His mental equipment was forever startling the gold woman. Where he had found the time to garner the store of knowledge that was his and to keep abreast of the times, leading such a life as he had for ten years, was a marvel to her.
"Ha! Ha!" Paul laughed suddenly as the cabin clock, which he had moved into the lounge, struck two bells. The laugh broke the spell of the stars which held Emily, only to weave her immediately in another.
"'I have shot back to Paris!'"
Paul laughed and made a pretense of dusting himself.
"'Come—pardon me—by the last waterspout,
Covered with ether,—accident of travel!
My eyes still full of star-dust, and my spurs
Encumbered by the planets' filaments!
Ha! on my doublet! A comet's hair!'"