Travers went on as if
thinking aloud:

"Your conduct was, of course, above reproach; but you made for yourself
a detestable reputation of mental superiority, expressed ironically. You
inspired mistrust in the best people. You were never popular."

"I was bored," murmured Mrs. Travers in a reminiscent tone and with her
chin resting in the hollow of her hand.

Mr. Travers got up from the seaman's chest as unexpectedly as if he had
been stung by a wasp, but, of course, with a much slower and more solemn
motion.

"The matter with you, Edith, is that at heart you are perfectly
primitive." Mrs. Travers stood up, too, with a supple, leisurely
movement, and raising her hands to her hair turned half away with a
pensive remark:

"Imperfectly civilized."

"Imperfectly disciplined," corrected Mr. Travers after a moment of
dreary meditation.

She let her arms fall and turned her head.

"No, don't say that," she protested with strange earnestness. "I am the
most severely disciplined person in the world. I am tempted to say that
my discipline has stopped at nothing short of killing myself. I suppose
you can hardly understand what I mean."

Mr. Travers made a slight grimace at the floor.

"I shall not try," he said. "It sounds like something that a barbarian,
hating the delicate complexities and the restraints of a nobler life,
might have said. From you it strikes me as wilful bad taste. . . .
I have often wondered at your tastes. You have always liked
extreme opinions, exotic costumes, lawless characters, romantic
personalities--like d'Alcacer . . ."

"Poor Mr. d'Alcacer," murmured Mrs. Travers.

"A man without any ideas of duty or usefulness," said Mr. Travers,
acidly. "What are you pitying him for?"

"Why! For finding himself in this position out of mere good-nature.
He had nothing to expect from joining our voyage, no advantage for his
political ambitions or anything of the kind. I suppose you asked him on
board to break our tete-a-tete which must have grown wearisome to you."

"I am never bored," declared Mr. Travers. "D'Alcacer seemed glad to
come. And, being a Spaniard, the horrible waste of time cannot matter to
him in the least."

"Waste of time!" repeated Mrs. Travers, indignantly.

"He may yet have to pay for his good nature with his life."

Mr. Travers could not conceal a movement of anger.

"Ah! I forgot those assumptions," he said between his clenched teeth.
"He is a mere Spaniard. He takes this f