FullReads

‘Then I’m ready to discuss the matter with him for the rest of the voyage.’

‘Very well; I count on you. But he’ll ask you, as he asks me, what the deuce you want him to do.’

‘To go to bed,’ I replied, laughing.

‘Oh, it isn’t a joke.’

‘That’s exactly what I told you at first.’

‘Yes, but don’t exult; I hate people who exult. Jasper wants to know why he should mind her being talked about if she doesn’t mind it herself.’

‘I’ll tell him why,’ I replied; and Mrs. Nettlepoint said she should be exceedingly obliged to me and repeated that she would come upstairs.

I looked for Jasper above that same evening, but circumstances did not favour my quest. I found him–that is I discovered that he was again ensconced behind the lifeboat with Miss Mavis; but there was a needless violence in breaking into their communion, and I put off our interview till the next day. Then I took the first opportunity, at breakfast, to make sure of it. He was in the saloon when I went in and was preparing to leave the table; but I stopped him and asked if he would give me a quarter of an hour on deck a little later–there was something particular I wanted to say to him. He said, ‘Oh yes, if you like,’ with just a visible surprise, but no look of an uncomfortable consciousness. When I had finished my breakfast I found him smoking on the forward-deck and I immediately began: ‘I am going to say something that you won’t at all like; to ask you a question that you will think impertinent.’

‘Impertinent? that’s bad.’

‘I am a good deal older than you and I am a friend–of many years–of your mother. There’s nothing I like less than to be meddlesome, but I think these things give me a certain right–a sort of privilege. For the rest, my inquiry will speak for itself.’

‘Why so many preliminaries?’ the young man asked, smiling.

We looked into each other’s eyes a moment. What indeed was his mother’s manner–her best manner–compared with his? ‘Are you prepared to be responsible?’

‘To you?’

‘Dear no–to the young lady herself. I am speaking of course of Miss Mavis.’

‘Ah yes, my mother tells me you have her greatly on your mind.’

‘So has your mother herself–now.’

‘She is so good as to say so–to oblige you.’

‘She would oblige me a great deal more by reassuring me. I am aware that you know I have told her that Miss Mavis is greatly talked about.’

‘Yes, but what on earth does it matter?’

‘It matters as a sign.’

‘A sign of what?’

‘That she is in a false position.’

Jasper puffed his cigar, with his eyes on the horizon. ‘I don’t know whether it’s your business, what you are attempting to discuss; but it really appears to me it is none of mine. What have I to do with the tattle with which a pack of old women console themselves for not being sea-sick?’

‘Do you call it tattle that Miss Mavis is in love with you?’

‘Drivelling.’

‘Then you are very ungrateful. The tattle of a pack of old women has this importance, that she suspects or knows that it exists, and that nice girls are for the most part very sensitive to that sort of thing. To be prepared not to heed it in this case she must have a reason, and the reason must be the one I have taken the liberty to call your attention to.’

‘In love with me in six days, just like that?’ said Jasper, smoking.

‘There is no accounting for tastes, and six days at sea are equivalent to sixty on land. I don’t want to make you too proud. Of course if you recognise your responsibility it’s all right and I have nothing to say.’

‘I don’t see what you mean,’ Jasper went on.

‘Surely you ought to have thought of that by this time. She’s engaged to be married and the gentleman she is engaged to is to meet her at Liverpool. The whole ship knows it (I didn’t tell them!) and the whole ship is watching her. It’s impertinent if you like, just as I am, but we make a little world here together and we can’t blink its conditions. What I ask you is whether you are prepared to allow her to give up the gentleman I have just mentioned for your sake.’