PAGE 18
A Question Of Trust
by
The day was brilliant, and Stephanie arose at length with a feeling that she must go up into the sunshine and face the future. The thought of meeting Pierre even could not ultimately detain her below, though it kept her there considerably longer than usual. After all, was she not bound to meet him? Of what use was it to shirk the inevitable?
But when she finally entered the saloon, he was not there. The table was laid for breakfast, and a sailor was at hand to serve her. But of Pierre there was no sign. He evidently had no intention of joining her.
She made no inquiry for him, but as soon as the meal was over she took her cloak and prepared to go on deck. With nervous haste she passed the scene of the previous night’s encounter. She almost expected to find Pierre waiting for her at the top of the companion, but she looked for him in vain. And even when she finally stepped upon the deck and crossed to the rail that she might search the whole length of the yacht, she could not discover him.
A vague uneasiness began to trouble her. The suspense was hard to bear. She longed to meet him and have done with it.
But she longed in vain. All through the sunny hours of the morning she sat or paced in solitude. No one came near her till her breakfast attendant appeared with another meal.
By the end of the afternoon she was thoroughly miserable. She longed intensely to inquire for the yacht’s master, yet could not bring herself to do so. Eventually it began to rain, and she went below and sat in the saloon, trying, quite ineffectually, to ease her torment of suspense with a book. But she comprehended nothing of what she read, and when the young cabin steward appeared again to set the dinner she looked up in desperation.
She was on the point of questioning him as to his master’s whereabouts; the question, indeed, was already half uttered, when her eyes went beyond him and she broke off short.
Pierre himself was quietly entering through the companion door.
He bowed to her in his abrupt way, and signed to the lad to continue his task.
“He understands no English,” he said. “You do not object to his presence?”
She replied in the negative, though in her heart she wished he had dismissed him. She could not meet his eyes before a third person. It added tenfold to her embarrassment.
But when he seated himself near her, she did venture a fleeting glance at him, and was amazed unspeakably by what she saw. For his face was haggard and drawn like the face of a sick man, and every hint of arrogance was gone from his bearing. He looked beaten.
He began to speak at once, jerkily, unnaturally, almost as if he also were embarrassed. “I have something to say to you,” he said, “which I beg you will hear with patience. It concerns your future–and mine.”
The strangeness of his manner, his obvious dejection, the amazing humility of his address, combined to endue Stephanie with a composure she had scarcely hoped to attain.
She found herself able to look at him quite steadily, and did so. It was he who–for the first time in her recollection–avoided her eyes.
“What is it, Monsieur Dumaresq?” she asked quietly.
His hands were gripped upon the arms of his chair. He seemed to be holding himself there by force.
“Just this,” he said. “I find that your estimate is after all the correct one. You have always regarded me as a blackguard, and a blackguard I am. I am not here to apologise for it, simply to acknowledge my mistake, for, strange as it will seem to you, I took myself for something different. At least when I gave you my word I thought I was capable of keeping it. Well, it is broken, and, that being so, I can no longer hold you to yours. Do you understand, Mademoiselle Stephanie? You are a free woman.”