Vellacott turned slowly and glanced at his companion's face. The smoke from the bad cigarette drifted past their heads to windward. He was not sure whether the priest was speaking from a professional point of view, with reference to heresy and the unknown goal to which all heretics are drifting, or not. Had René Drucquer been a good Jesuit, he would have seen his opportunity of saying a word in season. But this estimable desire found no place in his heart just then. “Your life,” he continued in a monotone, “is already mapped out--like the voyage of a ship traced across a chart. Is it not so? I have imagined it like that.” Vellacott continued to smoke for some moments in silence. He sat with his long legs stretched out in front of him, his back against the rail, and his rough blue jersey wrinkled up so that he could keep one hand in his pocket. The priest turned to look at him with a sudden fear that his motives might be misread. Vellacott interpreted his movement thus, for he spoke at once with a smile on his face. “I think it is best,” he said, “not to think too much about it. From what experience I have had, I have come to the humiliating conclusion that men have very little to do with the formation of their own lives. A ship-captain may sit down and mark his course across the chart with the greatest accuracy, the most profound knowledge of wind and current, and the keenest foresight; but that will have very little effect upon the actual voyage.” “But,” argued the priest in a low voice, “is it not better to have an end in view--to have a certain aim, and a method, more or less formed, of attaining it?” “Most men have that,” answered Christian, “but do not know that they have it!” “_You_ have?” Christian smoked meditatively. A month ago he would have said “Yes” without a moment's hesitation. “And you know it, I think,” added the priest slowly. He was perfectly innocent of any desire to extract details of his companion's life from unwilling lips, and Christian knew it. He was convinced that, whatever part René Drucquer had attempted to play in the past, he was sincere at that moment, and he divined that the young Jesuit was weakly giving way to a sudden desire to speak to some fellow-being of his own life--to lay aside the strict reserve demanded by the tenets of the Society to which he was irrevocably bound. In his superficial way, Christian Vellacott had studied men as well as letters, and he was not ignorant of the influence exercised over the human mind by such trifling circumstances as moonshine upon placid water, distant music, the solemn hush of eventide, or the subtle odour of a beloved flower. If René Drucquer was on the point of committing a great mistake, he at least would not urge him on towards it, so he smoked in silence, looking practical and unsympathetic. The priest laughed a little short, deprecating laugh, in which there was no shadow of mirth.