wed fast
upon the heels of violence, and tragedy was relieved by humor, by
interpretations of the strange twists and quirks of sailors' minds.

And while he talked, the girl looked at him with startled eyes. His fire
warmed her. She wondered if she had been cold all her days. She wanted
to lean toward this burning, blazing man that was like a volcano spouting
forth strength, robustness, and health. She felt that she must lean
toward him, and resisted by an effort. Then, too, there was the counter
impulse to shrink away from him. She was repelled by those lacerated
hands, grimed by toil so that the very dirt of life was ingrained in the
flesh itself, by that red chafe of the collar and those bulging muscles.
His roughness frightened her; each roughness of speech was an insult to
her ear, each rough phase of his life an insult to her soul. And ever
and again would come the draw of him, till she thought he must be evil to
have such power over her. All that was most firmly established in her
mind was rocking. His romance and adventure were battering at the
conventions. Before his facile perils and ready laugh, life was no
longer an affair of serious effort and restraint, but a toy, to be played
with and turned topsy-turvy, carelessly to be lived and pleasured in, and
carelessly to be flung aside. "Therefore, play!" was the cry that rang
through her. "Lean toward him, if so you will, and place your two hands
upon his neck!" She wanted to cry out at the recklessness of the
thought, and in vain she appraised her own cleanness and culture and
balanced all that she was against what he was not. She glanced about her
and saw the others gazing at him with rapt attention; and she would have
despaired had not she seen horror in her mother's eyes--fascinated
horror, it was true, but none the less horror. This man from outer
darkness was evil. Her mother saw it, and her mother was right. She
would trust her mother's judgment in this as she had always trusted it in
all things. The fire of him was no longer warm, and the fear of him was
no longer poignant.

Later, at the piano, she played for him, and at him, aggressively, with
the vague intent of emphasizing the impassableness of the gulf that
separated them. Her music was a club that she swung brutally upon his
head; and though it stunned him and crushed him down, it incited him. He
gazed upon her in awe. In his mind, as in her own, the gulf widened; but
faster th