en them, looked at the sparse furniture, draped
in white overalls, at the scagiiola floor, in which the great cluster of
crystal pendants seemed to shine again.

"You are master of your ship. Can't you sail it as you like?" Kate
Theory asked, with a smile.

"I am not master of anything. There is not a man in the world less free.
I am a slave. I am a victim."

She looked at him with kind eyes; something in his voice suddenly made
her put away all thought of the defensive airs that a girl, in certain
situations, is expected to assume. She perceived that he wanted to make
her understand something, and now her only wish was to help him to say
it. "You are not happy," she murmured, simply, her voice dying away in a
kind of wonderment at this reality.

The gentle touch of the words--it was as if her hand had stroked his
cheek--seemed to him the sweetest thing he had ever known. "No, I am not
happy, because I am not free. If I were--if I were, I would give up my
ship. I would give up everything, to follow you. I can't explain; that
is part of the hardness of it. I only want you to know it,--that if
certain things were different, if everything was different, I might tell
you that I believe I should have a right to speak to you. Perhaps some
day it will change; but probably then it will be too late. Meanwhile, I
have no right of any kind. I don't want to trouble you, and I don't ask
of you--anything! It is only to have spoken just once. I don't make
you understand, of course. I am afraid I seem to you rather a
brute,--perhaps even a humbug. Don't think of it now,--don't try to
understand. But some day, in the future, remember what I have said to
you, and how we stood here, in this strange old place, alone! Perhaps it
will give you a little pleasure."

Kate Theory began by listening to him with visible eagerness; but in a
moment she turned away her eyes. "I am very sorry for you," she said,
gravely.

"Then you do understand enough?"

"I shall think of what you have said, in the future."

Benyon's lips formed the beginning of a word of tenderness, which he
instantly suppressed; and in a different tone, with a bitter smile and a
sad shake of the head, raising his arms a moment and letting them fall,
he said: "It won't hurt any one, your remembering this!"

"I don't know whom you mean." And the girl, abruptly, began to walk to
the end of the room. He made no attempt to tell her whom he meant, and
they proceeded together i