ood
there in the rain, scarcely realizing when the schoolmaster wrapped his
raincoat round her; she was wondering whether she would have been
happier if she had known he was lying dead in the mortuary, or ill in
the hospital instead of sitting, too drunk to move out in the rain on
the quay. And suddenly she knew quite well. He had said love was a
hunger, and she would understand some day that it was as tigerish a
hunger as drink hunger or any other. In that moment of utter disgust and
pain and despair she understood that that hunger had come to her though
she did not yet comprehend it. It had taken hold of her now--she writhed
at the indignity of the thought, but she knew quite well that she
actually wanted his presence with her whether he were rude and
overbearing, weak and appealing, superior and instructive or drunk and
filthy. She simply hungered to have him about her. Always ready to
query, to examine motives, she asked herself whether this were not,
after all, merely a species of vanity in her that wanted to hold and
save this helpless man who, it seemed, could not live for a day without
her. And she got no answer to the question--the black water rushed past,
chill and pitiless: the rain-swept sky was starless, the streaming decks
deserted.

At last she went below, and found it impossible to pass his cabin door.
Everybody else was there, about the alleyways or in the saloon, safe and
happy: only Louis had to bring himself to disaster every time. Opening
his cabin door she went in. His things were all thrown about, his
shaving tackle on the bunk, his pyjamas on the floor. Taking them up
with hands that trembled she noticed that there were no buttons on them.
The pathos of this was more than she could bear. On the floor were the
two cups in which he had made tea before they reached port that morning.
The teapot they had bought at Gibraltar lay overturned. Quite
mechanically she cleaned up the tea-leaves and washed the cups. Then she
could bear it no longer and, throwing herself on his bunk, she buried
her face in his pillow and sobbed until she was exhausted.

CHAPTER XIII

There were things to be endured the next few days. The purser came
along, got Knollys to pack Louis's things and then sealed them. This
meant that Marcella was shut away from all association with him; it
seemed an unwarrantable interference with what she considered her
property. The schoolmaster was surprisingly comforting and kind; he