of existence. We shared the
sunshine, always together, very close, turning hand in hand to the sea,
whose unstained blueness continued under our feet the blue above our
heads, as though we had been snatched up into the sky. The insignificant
words we exchanged seemed informed by a sustaining certitude and an
admirable gravity, as though there had been some quality of unerring
wisdom in the blind love of man and woman. From the inexhaustible
treasure of her feelings she drew words, glances, gestures that appeased
every uneasiness of my heart. In some brief moment of illumination whose
advent my man's eyes had utterly missed, she had learned all at once
everything there was to know. She knew. She no longer needed to survey
my actions, my words, my thoughts; but she accorded me the sincere
flattery of spell-bound attention, and it was made intoxicating by her
smile. In those short days of a pause, when, like a swimmer turning on
his back, we lived in the trustful confidence of the sustaining depths,
instead of struggling with the agitation of the surface--in these days
we had the time to look at each other profoundly; and I saw her smile
come back again a little changed, more meaning and a little less
mirthful, as if her lips had been made stiff by sorrow. But she was
young; and youth, the time of softness, of tenderness, of enthusiasm,
and of pity, presents a surface as hard as marble to the finality of
death.

Breathing side by side, drinking in the sunshine, and talking of
ourselves not at all, but casting the sense of our love like a
magnificent garment over the wide significance of a world already
conquered, we could not help being made aware of the currents of
excitement and sympathy that converged upon our essential isolation from
the life of the ship. It was the excitement of the adventure brewing for
our drinking according to Sebright's recipe. People approached us--spoke
to us. We attended to them as if called down from an elevation; we
were aware of the kind tone; and, remaining indistinct, they retreated,
leaving us free to regain the heights of the lovers' paradise--a region
of tender whispers and intense silences. Suddenly there would be a
short, throaty laugh behind our backs, and Williams would begin, "I
say, Kemp; do you call to mind so-and-so?" Invariably some planter or
merchant in Jamaica. I never could.

Williams would grunt, "No? I wonder how you passed your time away these
two years or more. The p