hen I needed you and asked
for you, Pip knew that you wouldn't come--and he was sorry for me."

"And he was sorry again this afternoon?"

"Yes."

"And he showed it by making love to you?"

"He thinks I won't be happy with you. He thinks that you don't care. He
thinks----"

"I don't care what Meade thinks. I want to know what you think, Eve."

Their voices had come out of the darkness. She pulled the little chain of
a wall bracket, and the room was enveloped in a warm wave of light. "I
don't know what I think. But I hated to have you with Marie-Louise."

"She was very ill. You knew that. Eve, if we can't trust each other, what
possible happiness can there be ahead?"

She had no answer ready.

"Of course I can't stay on Meade's boat after this," he went on; "I'll
get them to run in here somewhere and drop me."

She sank back in the chair from which she had risen when Philip left
them. His troubled eyes resting upon her saw a blur of pink and gold out
of which emerged her white face.

"But I want you to stay."

"You shouldn't want me to stay, Eve. I can't accept his hospitality,
after this, and call myself--a man."

"Oh, Dicky--I detest heroics."

She was startled by the tone in which he said, "If that is the way you
feel about it, we might as well end it here."

"Dicky----"

"I mean it, Eve. The whole thing is based on the fact that I stayed with
a patient when you wanted me. Well, I shall always be staying with
patients after we are married, and if you are unable to see why I must do
the thing I did last night, then you will never be able to see it. And a
doctor's wife must see it."

She came up to him, and in the darkness laid her cheek against his arm.
"Dicky, don't joke about a thing like that. I can't stand it. And I'm
sorry about--Pip. Dicky, I shall die if you don't forgive me."

He forgave her. He even made himself believe that Pip might be forgiven.
He exerted himself to seem at his ease at dinner. He said nothing more
about leaving at the next landing.

But late that night he sat alone on deck in the darkness. He was a plain
man, and he saw things straight. And this thing was crooked. The hot
honor of his youth revolted against the situation in which he saw
himself. He felt hurt and ashamed. It was as if the dreams of his boyhood
had been dragged in the dust.

CHAPTER XVIII

_In Which We Hear Once More of a Sandalwood Fan._

IN the winter which followed Richard often wondered