girl's mind: Madame de Warens, the streets of Paris, the deck of the
yacht. She remembered the piece of embroidery work she had been engaged
on last night, and then a scrap of conversation she had overheard
between the doctor and the artist towards the end of dinner, they were
talking of the passeistes and futurists, of the work of Pablo Picasso,
of Sunyer, of Boccioni and Durio, arguing with extraordinary passion
about the work of these people.

"There's weather or something over there," said La Touche who had
slipped down and was seated on the bottom boards with his back to a
thwart; he nodded his head towards Kerguelen.

Around one of the highest peaks a lead-coloured cloud had wrapped itself
turban-wise, and even as they looked the cloud turban increased in
volume and height, mournful and monstrous as some djin-born vision of
the Arabian story-tellers.

"That's snow," said Bompard, "and by the twist of it it's in a
whirlwind."

"Bon Dieu, what a place," said La Touche.

"You may say that," said Bompard, "but that's nothing, it's when we come
to make a landing we'll find what we are against."

"Oh, we've got so far we'll finish it," said La Touche.

Then began a dismal argument, full of words and repetitions but with few
ideas, and from the trend of it the curious fact appeared that La
Touche, the ship's grouser and dismal James, was taking the optimistical
side, whilst Bompard, generally cheerful, was the pessimist.

La Touche's optimism was, perhaps, the outcome of fear. What they had
gone through was nothing to the prospect of having to make a landing on
that tremendous coast, simply because what they had gone through had
come on them suddenly. This thing had to be faced in cold blood. The
coward in La Touche refused to face it fully, refused to face the fact
that with this swell and with all the chances of uncharted and unknown
reefs and rocks the risk was appalling. He grew angry.

"Don't be a coward over it," said he. That set Bompard off, and for a
moment the girl thought they would have come to blows. Then it passed
and they were as friendly as before, just as though nothing had
happened.

Their talk and the whole business had been conducted as though the girl
were not there. In the few hours since daybreak, quarter deck and
fo'c'sle had vanished. They had become welded into one community, all
equal, and the lady was no longer the lady. There was no hint of
disrespect, no hint of respect. They w