We were at the end of the passageway now and just by making a sharp left turn I could have taken her into the cabin section and introduced her to Joan. Perhaps, out of compassion, I should have done that ... let her relax in a lounge chair and look out at the cool, untroubled stars, and regain a little more of her composure. Some of it was coming back, she wasn't trembling quite so violently now, and women seem to know better than men how to ease shock-engendered agitation ... especially when it's another woman they have to soothe and sympathize with. I could trust Joan to handle it like an expert. "Of course, you poor darling. I know just how you feel. Ralph will know what to do. Don't think about it. Just stay right here with us until Ralph comes back." It would have been the kind thing to do, all right and for an instant I hesitated and almost committed an act of madness. When you've something to conceal, it's much easier to avoid a thoughtless admission, a damaging slip of the tongue, when you've had time to collect your thoughts and decide in advance exactly how much of the truth it's wise to reveal. She was too agitated now to guard against slips and our chances of getting at the truth would be much better. And like the short-on-brains, over-chivalrous lug I could be on rare occasions--I hoped they were rare--I'd almost torn it. 8 Unlike Jonathan Trilling, Commander Littlefield was the kind of man who was what he was in an uncomplicated way. You didn't have to try to analyze why he impressed you as he did, because it was all there on display, right out in the open. He was big and robust looking, with a granite-firm jaw and the kind of features that take a long time to develop the lines of character that are etched into them, because a man who has his emotions well under control in his youth will pass into middle-age before you can tell from his expression just how much maturity and strength resides in him. There are bland-faced lads who seem to have no lines of character at all in their countenances up to about the age of twenty-eight. But when you hear them talk you change your mind very quickly about them, and when they are forty-five the lines are all there, deeply-etched, and the mystery is explained. Commander Littlefield was that kind of man. We had several very serious things to discuss, because five hours had passed since I'd sat facing him in the same chair and Helen Barclay had sat in another chair at right angles to a third chair, which he had drawn out from his desk and occupied for a full hour without a coffee break, his eyes searching her face as she talked. His stare was a kind of interrogation in itself, and it must have been hard for her to endure. I think it would have angered me a little, if I hadn't suspected what was behind it.