of his forehead,--the hole of the
pistol shot. He died clutching my hands, swearing that he loved me and
that he had killed himself for me ... a tiresome, horrible scene....
And nevertheless I am sure that he was deceiving himself, that he did
not love me. He killed himself through wounded vanity on seeing that I
would have nothing to do with him,--just for stubbornness, for
theatrical effect, influenced by his readings.... He was a Roumanian
tenor. That was in Russia.... I have been an actress a part of my
life...."

The sailor wished to express the astonishment that the different
changes of this mysterious wandering existence, always showing a new
facet, were producing in him; but he contained himself in order to
listen better to the cruel counsels of the malignant voice speaking
within his thoughts.... He was not trying to kill himself for her.
Quite the contrary! His moody aggressiveness was considering her as the
next victim. There was in his eyes something of the dead _Triton_ when
in pursuit of a distant woman's skirt on the coast.

Freya continued speaking.

"To kill one's self is not a proof of love. They all promise me the
sacrifice of their existence from the very first words. Men don't know
any other song. Don't imitate them, Captain."

She remained pensive a long time. Twilight was rapidly falling; half
the sky was of amber and the other half of a midnight blue in which the
first stars were beginning to twinkle. The gulf was drowsing under the
leaden coverlet of its water, exhaling a mysterious freshness that was
spreading to the mountains and trees. All the landscape appeared to be
acquiring the fragility of crystal. The silent air was trembling with
exaggerated resonance, repeating the fall of an oar in the boats that,
small as flies, were slipping along under the sky arching above the
gulf, and prolonging the feminine and invisible voices passing through
the groves on the heights.

The waiter went from table to table, distributing candles enclosed in
paper shades. The mosquitoes and moths, revived by the twilight, were
buzzing around these red and yellow flowers of light.

Her voice was again sounding in the twilight air with the vagueness of
one speaking in a dream.

"There is a sacrifice greater than that of life,--the only one that can
convince a woman that she is beloved. What does life signify to a man
like you?... Your profession puts it in danger every day and I believe
you capable of ris