her," she repeated. "Then, what about my thoughts? Luckily we
have Mr. d'Alcacer. I shall speak to him first."

She turned away from the rail and moved toward the Cage.

"Jorgenson," the voice of Lingard resounded all along the deck, "get a
light on the gangway." Then he followed Mrs. Travers slowly.

VI

D'Alcacer, after receiving his warning, stepped back and leaned against
the edge of the table. He could not ignore in himself a certain emotion.
And indeed, when he had asked Mrs. Travers for a sign he expected to
be moved--but he had not expected the sign to come so soon. He expected
this night to pass like other nights, in broken slumbers, bodily
discomfort, and the unrest of disconnected thinking. At the same time
he was surprised at his own emotion. He had flattered himself on the
possession of more philosophy. He thought that this famous sense of
self-preservation was a queer thing, a purely animal thing. "For, as
a thinking man," he reflected, "I really ought not to care." It was
probably the unusual that affected him. Clearly. If he had been lying
seriously ill in a room in a hotel and had overheard some ominous
whispers he would not have cared in the least. Ah, but then he would
have been ill--and in illness one grows so indifferent. Illness is a
great help to unemotional behaviour, which of course is the correct
behaviour for a man of the world. He almost regretted he was not very
ill. But, then, Mr. Travers was obviously ill and it did not seem to
help him much. D'Alcacer glanced at the bedstead where Mr. Travers
preserved an immobility which struck d'Alcacer as obviously affected.
He mistrusted it. Generally he mistrusted Mr. Travers. One couldn't tell
what he would do next. Not that he could do much one way or another, but
that somehow he threatened to rob the situation of whatever dignity it
may have had as a stroke of fate, as a call on courage. Mr. d'Alcacer,
acutely observant and alert for the slightest hints, preferred to look
upon himself as the victim not of a swindle but of a rough man naively
engaged in a contest with heaven's injustice. D'Alcacer did not examine
his heart, but some lines of a French poet came into his mind, to the
effect that in all times those who fought with an unjust heaven had
possessed the secret admiration and love of men. He didn't go so far as
love but he could not deny to himself that his feeling toward Lingard
was secretly friendly and--well, appreciative. Mr. Tra