"'What else can I be?' she said. 'Boys always think they are in love. I don't think much of that sort of love.' And she fell silent again, looking at the sea.
"'Look here, my dear,' I said abruptly, 'tell me about it. I'm in the dark. Can't I help you?'
"'No,' she said. 'You can't. Nobody can help me. I'm in a fix.'
"'But how?' I persisted.
"'Do you suppose,' she said, slowly, 'that nobody has been in love with me before I came on your ship? I thought you'd understand, when I told you I had never had any luck. I haven't. I had no one to tell me. I thought people were kinder, you know—men, I mean. And now all I can do is wait ... wait. Sometimes I wish I was dead, wish I'd never been born! Before you came up, I was wondering if I couldn't just jump—finish it all up—no more waiting. And then I found I hadn't the pluck to do that. I tried to tell Mrs. Evans once, give her a hint somehow, but she doesn't understand. She's safe. She's got a husband as well as ... no matter. I was going to tell you, one evening, you remember, but I got scared. I didn't feel sure about you. Oh, I'm sorry, of course, about Mr. Siddons. I liked him, you know. He's a gentleman. But even gentlemen are very much the same as anybody else.'
"'But what will you do?' I asked in astonishment.
"'I must go with my father,' she replied, stonily. 'He wants me to be with him. He is not happy here. He is misunderstood. He is going into business with my—with another man. We are going to Saloniki. I dare say I shall do as he wishes. That's what a daughter should do, isn't it?' And her eyes flickered toward me again.
"I didn't answer, and there was a long silence. I had no words of consolation for that solitary soul engaged in the sombre business of waiting. And I understood the trivial rôle which young Siddons played in her tragic experience. To her we were all pasteboard figures actuated by a heartless and irrelevant destiny. Fate had shut the door upon her with a crash, and she was alone with her griefs in an alien world. I put my arm round her shoulders. She looked at me with hard bright eyes, her red lips firmly set.
"'Can I help you?' I whispered. She shook her head. 'At least,' I went on, 'you can write to me, if you were in trouble—ever. I would like you to feel that someone is thinking of you.'
"'It's kind of you,' she said, with a faint smile, 'but you wouldn't be able to do much. Oh! I know what men are,' she added with a hysterical little laugh. 'Always thinking of themselves. There's always that behind everything they do. They don't mean it, but it's there, all the time. Even you wouldn't do anything to make yourself uncomfortable, you know.'