In the evening, on board his schooner, sitting on the rail, his arms folded on his breast and his eyes fixed on the deck, he let the darkness catch him unawares in the midst of a meditation on the mechanism of sentiment and the springs of passion. And all the time he had an abiding consciousness of her bodily presence. The effect on his senses had been so penetrating that in the middle of the night, rousing up suddenly, wide-eyed in the darkness of his cabin, he did not create a faint mental vision of her person for himself, but, more intimately affected, he scented distinctly the faint perfume she used, and could almost have sworn that he had been awakened by the soft rustle of her dress. He even sat up listening in the dark for a time, then sighed and lay down again, not agitated but, on the contrary, oppressed by the sensation of something that had happened to him and could not be undone. CHAPTER III In the afternoon he lounged into the editorial office, carrying with affected nonchalance that weight of the irremediable he had felt laid on him suddenly in the small hours of the night—that consciousness of something that could no longer be helped. His patronising friend informed him at once that he had made the acquaintance of the Moorsom party last night. At the Dunsters, of course. Dinner. “Very quiet. Nobody there. It was much better for the business. I say . . .” Renouard, his hand grasping the back of a chair, stared down at him dumbly. “Phew! That’s a stunning girl. . . Why do you want to sit on that chair? It’s uncomfortable!” “I wasn’t going to sit on it.” Renouard walked slowly to the window, glad to find in himself enough self-control to let go the chair instead of raising it on high and bringing it down on the Editor’s head. “Willie kept on gazing at her with tears in his boiled eyes. You should have seen him bending sentimentally over her at dinner.” “Don’t,” said Renouard in such an anguished tone that the Editor turned right round to look at his back. “You push your dislike of young Dunster too far. It’s positively morbid,” he disapproved mildly. “We can’t be all beautiful after thirty. . . . I talked a little, about you mostly, to the professor. He appeared to be interested in the silk plant—if only as a change from the great subject. Miss Moorsom didn’t seem to mind when I confessed to her that I had taken you into the confidence of the thing. Our Willie approved too. Old Dunster with his white beard seemed to give me his blessing. All those people have a great opinion of you, simply because I told them that you’ve led every sort of life one can think of before you got struck on exploration. They want you to make suggestions. What do you think ‘Master Arthur’ is likely to have taken to?” “Something easy,” muttered Renouard without unclenching his teeth.