her away, Musa murmured to Audrey in a disconcerting tone
that he must speak to her on a matter of urgency, and that in order that he
might do so, they must go ashore and walk seawards, far from interruption.
She consented, for she was determined to prove to him at close quarters
that she was a different creature from the other two. They moved to the
gangway amid discreet manifestations from the doctor and the
secretary--manifestations directed chiefly to Musa and indicative of his
importance as a notability. Audrey was puzzled. For her, Musa was more than
ever just Musa, and less than ever a personage.

"I shall not return to the yacht," he said, with an excited bitterness,
after they had walked some distance along one of the paths leading past low
bushes into the wilderness of the marsh land that bounded the estuary to
the south. The sky was still invisible, but there was now a certain amount
of diffused light, and the pale path could easily be distinguished amid the
sombreness of green. The yacht was hidden behind one of the knolls. No
sound could be heard. The breeze had died. That which was around them--on
either hand, above, below--was the universe. They knew that they stood
still in the universe, and this idea gave their youth the sensation of
being very important.

"What is that which you say?" Audrey demanded sharply in French, as Musa
had begun in French. She was aware, not for the first time with Musa, of
the sudden possibilities of drama in a human being. She could scarcely make
out his face, but she knew that he was in a mood for high follies; she knew
that danger was gathering; she knew that the shape of the future was
immediately to be moulded by her and him, and chiefly by herself. She liked
it. The sensation of her importance was reinforced.

"I say I shall never return to the yacht," he repeated.

She thought compassionately:

"Poor foolish thing!"

She was incalculably older and wiser than this irrational boy. She was the
essence of wisdom.

She said, with acid detachment:

"But your luggage, your belongings? What an idea to leave in this manner!
It is so polite, so sensible!"

"I shall not return."

"Of course," she said, "I do not at all understand why you are going. But
what does that matter? You are going." Her indifference was superb. It was
so superb that it might have driven some men to destroy her on the spot.

"Yes, you understand! I told you last night," said Musa, overflowing w