‘No,’ he said; ‘I am running away from that.’

He gave little thought to the conversation, but he was thinking much of the girl.  She looked strangely beautiful and unreal in the dim light—­curiously visionary—­and yet he felt that she radiated warmth and life.  Something stirred hotly within him:  he was drawn to her as with many hands.

‘It would interest me,’ she said—­’it would interest me deeply.’  She turned her face up to him, and her eyes caught the light, and burned with curious lustre in the shadowy face.

He did not misjudge her; he knew her concern for him to be the outcome of gratitude and the kindliness of a simple nature, but it conveyed a sweet flattery.  Her hand rested upon his arm, and from its soft pressure flowed currents of emotion.  At his heart was a savage hunger.  The faint scent her hair exhaled seemed to cloud his brain and his vision.

’I feel that it is some sorrow, some wrong done you in your early life, that makes you so bitter against the world,’ she said.  ’You think ill of all because one or two have been unkind and unjust, perhaps.  Because someone has been false or unfair to you at home there, you are cold and contemptuous and distrustful of the people around you here, who are eager to be your friends.’  Her tone was almost caressing.

For answer he caught her up in his arms, using his strength roughly, cruelly, clasping her to his breast, and kissing her mouth twice, thrice, with a fierce rapture.  A moment he held her thus, gazing into her face, and the girl’s hands seemed to flutter up to his neck.  Suddenly she experienced an awakening.  On the heels of the new joy came a new terror.  Setting her palms against his breast, she pushed herself from his relaxed arms.  A few feet of deck, a space of cold moonlight, divided them, and they stood thus, facing each other in silence.  Lucy had an intuitive expectancy; the situation called for an avowal.  It became awkward.  A boyish shamefacedness had followed Done’s outburst of passion, and he spoke never a word.  The two were victims of a painful anti-climax.  A girl has but one resource in such an emergency.  The tears came, and Lucy Woodrow turned and stole away, leaving Jim stunned, abashed, with unseeing eyes bent upon the sea.  Done’s right hand was striking at the woodwork mechanically; his mind was in a turmoil.  The blows increased in force till blood ran from his knuckles, and then through his clenched teeth came the bitter words.  His rage against himself had a biting vindictiveness.  He cursed in whispers.

What a fool he had been!  What a fatuous, blundering ass!  What had he done?  Why had he done it?  Was he in love, with Lucy Woodrow?  This latter question recurred again and again through the night, and the answer came vehemently—­no, no, and no again!  He had nothing in common with the girl.  He recited a score of her simple, silly opinions in self-defence, and, having strenuously reasserted his freedom, turned over to sleep, and slept never a wink all night.  What disturbed him most was the fear of meeting Lucy Woodrow again.  Perhaps she would avoid him now.  There was no comfort in the thought.  He knew that what had happened must alter their relations towards each other, but could neither admit that Lucy was necessary to him nor summon up a comfortable indifference.