te was
well inspired. We dined like a lot of Carthusian monks."

"You allude to our silence?"

"It was most scrupulous. If we had taken an eternal vow we couldn't have
kept it better."

"Did you feel bored?"

"Pas du tout," d'Alcacer assured her with whimsical gravity. "I felt
nothing. I sat in a state of blessed vacuity. I believe I was the
happiest of us three. Unless you, too, Mrs. Travers. . . ."

"It's absolutely no use your fishing for my thoughts, Mr. d'Alcacer. If
I were to let you see them you would be appalled."

"Thoughts really are but a shape of feelings. Let me congratulate you
on the impassive mask you can put on those horrors you say you nurse in
your breast. It was impossible to tell anything by your face."

"You will always say flattering things."

"Madame, my flatteries come from the very bottom of my heart. I have
given up long ago all desire to please. And I was not trying to get at
your thoughts. Whatever else you may expect from me you may count on my
absolute respect for your privacy. But I suppose with a mask such as you
can make for yourself you really don't care. The Man of Fate, I noticed,
is not nearly as good at it as you are."

"What a pretentious name. Do you call him by it to his face, Mr.
d'Alcacer?"

"No, I haven't the cheek," confessed d'Alcacer, equably. "And, besides,
it's too momentous for daily use. And he is so simple that he might
mistake it for a joke and nothing could be further from my thoughts.
Mrs. Travers, I will confess to you that I don't feel jocular in the
least. But what can he know about people of our sort? And when I reflect
how little people of our sort can know of such a man I am quite content
to address him as Captain Lingard. It's common and soothing and most
respectable and satisfactory; for Captain is the most empty of all
titles. What is a Captain? Anybody can be a Captain; and for Lingard
it's a name like any other. Whereas what he deserves is something
special, significant, and expressive, that would match his person, his
simple and romantic person."

He perceived that Mrs. Travers was looking at him intently. They
hastened to turn their eyes away from each other.

"He would like your appreciation," Mrs. Travers let drop negligently.

"I am afraid he would despise it."

"Despise it! Why, that sort of thing is the very breath of his
nostrils."

"You seem to understand him, Mrs. Travers. Women have a singular
capacity for understanding. I