e couldn't make a man like
Monsieur Laparde ridiculous--she could only make one feel sorry for
him."

"Well, anyway, it's quite evident that she--oh, isn't that Lord Mornely
just going inside? Gracious, I had no idea I was getting so cold! Do
come! I'm nearly perished! We'll catch our deaths out here!"

The arms of the steamer chair creaked as Jean's hands clenched upon
them. His face was crimson with passion. What right had these cursed
and _banale_ women to meddle in his affairs, and to discuss him? His
hands gripped harder on the chair and it creaked again. So, then, this
was the talk and gossip of the ship--and everybody knew it! If it were
idle talk he could have laughed at it, and gone and bowed before them
sardonically, and taken his revenge in their confusion; but it was
true, and it only made his fury the greater. They had but voiced his
own thoughts of five minutes ago, and his thoughts of yesterday, and of
the day before, and of the days before that, since almost from the
moment indeed that Myrna had promised to be his wife--the moment that
once, like a poor, deluded fool, he had thought would be counted the
greatest in his life! A hundred little things during his convalescence
had been like signposts of bitter disappointment. She cared nothing
for Jean Laparde the man; she was marrying Jean Laparde the
sculptor-genius, whose name was on every tongue! She did not know the
meaning of love! She loved only what his name might bring her. There
was no tenderness, no intimacy. She _put up_ with him--_sacre
nom_!--that was all! He had refused to believe it in those few days in
Paris. He had shut his eyes to it then. He could not shut his eyes to
it here on board ship--where everybody's eyes, even those damned cats'!
were open. And now she seemed to assume that, since he was her
property, her possession, and that the whole matter, as far as it
concerned her, was quite and entirely settled to her satisfaction, she
could devote herself to a new affair every half-hour, while he, he,
Jean Laparde, the great Laparde, looked on--and grinned!

He rose savagely from his chair, and, turning up the collar of his
ulster and pulling his cap far down over his eyes, went along to the
extreme end of the deck. Here, unprotected by the canvas
weather-cloths such as those along the ship's side that closed in the
promenade, sheltering the passengers from the damp, driving mist of a
North Atlantic fog, it was wet