“The same, yet not the same,” he repeated after her, with an attempt at
lightness, yet abstractedly.
“I think you gentlemen know each other?” she said.
“Yes; we met in the cemetery this morning. I was visiting the grave of a
young French officer.”
“I know,” she said--“Justine Caron’s brother. She has told me; but she
did not tell me your name.”
“She has told you?” he said.
“Yes. She is--my companion.” I saw that she did not use the word that
first came to her.
“How strangely things occur! And yet,” he added musingly, “I suppose,
after all, coincidence is not so strange in these days of much travel,
particularly with people whose lives are connected--more or less.”
“Whose lives are connected--more or less,” she repeated after him, in a
steely tone.
It seemed to me that I had received my cue to leave. I bowed myself
away, and went about my duties. As we steamed bravely through the
Straits of Babelmandeb, with Perim on our left, rising lovely through
the milky haze, I came on deck again, and they were still near where I
had left them an hour before. I passed, glancing at them as I did so.
They did not look towards me. His eyes were turned to the shore, and
hers were fixed on him. I saw an expression on her lips that gave
her face new character. She was speaking, as I thought, clearly and
mercilessly. I could not help hearing her words as I passed them.
“You are going to be that--you!” There was a ring of irony in her
tone. I heard nothing more in words, but I saw him turn to her somewhat
sharply, and I caught the deep notes of his voice as he answered her.
When, a moment after, I looked back, she had gone below.
Galt Roscoe had a seat at Captain Ascott’s table, and I did not see
anything of him at meal-times, but elsewhere I soon saw him a great
deal. He appeared to seek my company. I was glad of this, for I found
that he was an agreeable man, and had distinct originality of ideas,
besides being possessed of very considerable culture. He also had that
social aplomb so much a characteristic of the naval officer. Yet, man of
the world as he was, he had a strain of asceticism which puzzled me. It
did not make him eccentric, but it was not a thing usual with the naval
man. Again, he wished to be known simply as Mr. Roscoe, not as Captain
Roscoe, which was his rank. He said nothing about having retired, yet
I guessed he had done so. One evening, however, soon after we had left
Aden, we were sitting in my cabin, and the conversation turned upon a
recent novel dealing with the defection of a clergyman of the Church of
England through agnosticism. The keenness with which he threw himself
into the discussion and the knowledge he showed, surprised me. I knew
(as most medical students get to know, until they know better) some
scientific objections to Christianity, and I put them forward. He
clearly and powerfully met them. I said at last, laughingly: “Why, you
ought to take holy orders.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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