He had not calculated, and he could not have foreseen, the effect of his words. Her eyes filled with tears. "My dearest," she said, "don't you see how trivial everything is to me in comparison with you? But I dare not love you so much as I can! So I encourage other enthusiasms--out of fear. Sometimes it seems as though the extraordinary, impossible ideal would be to have you with me for ever, and be an actress as well. But that is out of the question. And if I had my choice--if I could be as great as Rachel or Mrs. Siddons, or live with you on my dear rag-heap, with the jackals howling--do you think that I would hesitate, that I could hesitate?" "If I believed you I should be a dreadful coxcomb!" "Risk the coxcomb," she said. "I can!" A clanging bell and the noise of traffic on the quay recalled them to the moment. They had barely time to reach the steamer and get on board. A strong, cold breeze was blowing; the sun shone full on the sea, which, near the horizon, was as green as the sky on a summer evening. But clouds were gathering in the north-west, and the peculiar brightness which presages rain lent a fugitive brilliancy to the atmosphere. The town and its spires glittered; the water, frothing round the paddle-wheels, sent its shining spray upon the brown boards of the wharf. Brigit kissed her hands toward France. "Soon," she exclaimed, "soon I can kiss its ground. How I love my country and the place where you lived, Robert, as a boy!" CHAPTER X Lady Fitz Rewes had determined to prevent the marriage of Lord Reckage with Agnes Carillon. She could not forget the dreadful scene with Sara when that poor girl was endeavouring to reconcile herself to the Duke of Marshire's proposal. Pensée had studied each person concerned in the possible tragedy. She saw that Agnes was by no means serene, that the portrait by Rennes somehow made no progress, that Reckage was feverish and excitable. His bearing toward Sara during the lunch confirmed Pensée's suspicion that the love which had existed between them as boy and girl was still unextinguished on either side. He would have been less than mortal, she thought, if he had not felt, with all the bitterness of a conscious fool, that he had missed his true destiny. Sara possessed the warmth and wealth of heart which were the complements his own bleak nature required. Agnes Carillon, with her accurate, invariable beauty, had a prim disposition, wholesome enough for a man of strange, dark humours like David Rennes, but perilous always in its effect on any frigid or calculating mind. And Reckage was known to be supremely selfish. It seemed to Pensée that Sara had behaved very naturally, very touchingly, through the trying conversation on the subject of rising men and their marriages. Her demeanour had been unsurpassable. But it was not in nature that a woman who understood a man could look on, inactive and indifferent, while he fettered himself with some damaging influence.