d at the nature of the
incongruous revelations coming to him in the surroundings and in the
atmosphere of the open sea. It is difficult for us to understand the
extent, the completeness, the comprehensiveness of his inexperience, for
us who didn't go to sea out of a small private school at the age of
fourteen years and nine months. Leaning on his elbow in the mizzen
rigging and so still that the helmsman over there at the other end of the
poop might have (and he probably did) suspect him of being criminally
asleep on duty, he tried to "get hold of that thing" by some side which
would fit in with his simple notions of psychology. "What the deuce are
they worrying about?" he asked himself in a dazed and contemptuous
impatience. But all the same "jailer" was a funny name to give a man;
unkind, unfriendly, nasty. He was sorry that Mr. Smith was guilty in
that matter because, the truth must be told, he had been to a certain
extent sensible of having been noticed in a quiet manner by the father of
Mrs. Anthony. Youth appreciates that sort of recognition which is the
subtlest form of flattery age can offer. Mr. Smith seized opportunities
to approach him on deck. His remarks were sometimes weird and
enigmatical.

He was doubtless an eccentric old gent. But from that to calling his son-
in-law (whom he never approached on deck) nasty names behind his back was
a long step.

And Mr. Powell marvelled . . . "

"While he was telling me all this,"--Marlow changed his tone--"I
marvelled even more. It was as if misfortune marked its victims on the
forehead for the dislike of the crowd. I am not thinking here of
numbers. Two men may behave like a crowd, three certainly will when
their emotions are engaged. It was as if the forehead of Flora de Barral
were marked. Was the girl born to be a victim; to be always disliked and
crushed as if she were too fine for this world? Or too luckless--since
that also is often counted as sin.

Yes, I marvelled more since I knew more of the girl than Mr. Powell--if
only her true name; and more of Captain Anthony--if only the fact that he
was the son of a delicate erotic poet of a markedly refined and
autocratic temperament. Yes, I knew their joint stories which Mr. Powell
did not know. The chapter in it he was opening to me, the sea-chapter,
with such new personages as the sentimental and apoplectic chief-mate and
the morose steward, however astounding to him in its detached condition