第16章

"Oh one's so glad then that it's almost the same as if one had arrived.Yet we ought to be grateful when the elements have been so kind to us," I added."I hope you'll have enjoyed the voyage."She hesitated ever so little."Yes, much more than I expected.""Did you think it would be very bad?"

"Horrible, horrible!"

The tone of these words was strange, but I hadn't much time to reflect upon it, for turning round at that moment I saw Jasper Nettlepoint come toward us.He was still distant by the expanse of the white deck, and I couldn't help taking him in from head to foot as he drew nearer.I don't know what rendered me on this occasion particularly sensitive to the impression, but it struck me that I saw him as I had never seen him before, saw him, thanks to the intense sea-light, inside and out, in his personal, his moral totality.It was a quick, a vivid revelation; if it only lasted a moment it had a simplifying certifying effect.He was intrinsically a pleasing apparition, with his handsome young face and that marked absence of any drop in his personal arrangements which, more than any one I've ever seen, he managed to exhibit on shipboard.He had none of the appearance of wearing out old clothes that usually prevails there, but dressed quite straight, as I heard some one say.This gave him an assured, almost a triumphant air, as of a young man who would come best out of any awkwardness.I expected to feel my companion's hand loosen itself on my arm, as an indication that now she must go to him, and I was almost surprised she didn't drop me.We stopped as we met and Jasper bade us a friendly good-morning.Of course the remark that we had another lovely day was already indicated, and it led him to exclaim, in the manner of one to whom criticism came easily, "Yes, but with this sort of thing consider what one of the others would do!""One of the other ships?"

"We should be there now, or at any rate tomorrow.""Well then I'm glad it isn't one of the others"--and I smiled at the young lady on my arm.My words offered her a chance to say something appreciative, and gave him one even more; but neither Jasper nor Grace Mavis took advantage of the occasion.What they did do, Inoticed, was to look at each other rather fixedly an instant; after which she turned her eyes silently to the sea.She made no movement and uttered no sound, contriving to give me the sense that she had all at once become perfectly passive, that she somehow declined responsibility.We remained standing there with Jasper in front of us, and if the contact of her arm didn't suggest I should give her up, neither did it intimate that we had better pass on.I had no idea of giving her up, albeit one of the things I seemed to read just then into Jasper's countenance was a fine implication that she was his property.His eyes met mine for a moment, and it was exactly as if he had said to me "I know what you think, but I don't care a rap."What I really thought was that he was selfish beyond the limits: