nd let a certain ugly word blast my prospects. But I don't happen
to see the business that way. On the contrary I hope to get every ounce
of advantage out of it I can--use it as a spur rather than a hobble. And
I love my profession too. It gives you room and opportunity. I am waiting
now for my first ship, my first command. That's a fine thing and a strong
one. For your first ship is as a bride to you, and your first command
makes you as a king among men. Oh! on a small scale I grant; but, as far
as it reaches, your authority is absolute. On board your own ship you are
master with a vengeance--if you like. And I do like."

Faircloth said the last few words softly, but with a weight of meaning
not to be misunderstood. He bent down, once more, chafed Damaris' feet
and wrapped his jacket carefully round them.

"And, while you and I are alone together, there is something--as we've
spoken so freely--which I want to tell you, so that there may be no
misconception about me or about what I want.--As men in my rank of life
go, I am well off. Rich--again on a small scale; but with means
sufficient to meet all my needs. I'm not a spend-thrift by nature,
luckily. And I have amply enough not only to hold my own in my profession
and win through, but to procure myself the pleasures and amusements I
happen to fancy. I want you to remember that, please. Tell me is it quite
clear to you?"

"Yes," Damaris said, "you have made it quite clear."

Yet for the first time he jarred on her, as with a more than superficial
difference of breeding and of class. This mention of money offended her
taste, seeming to lower the level upon which their extraordinary and--to
her--terrible conversation had thus far moved. It hurt her with another
kind of hurting--not magnificent, not absorbing, but just common. That in
speaking of money he was protecting himself, proudly self-guarding his
own honour and that of his mother, Lesbia Faircloth, never, in her
innocence of what is mean and mercenary, occurred to Damaris.

So she took her hands off his shoulders and clasped them in her lap.
Clasped them with all her poor strength, striving even in this extreme,
to maintain some measure of calm and of dignity. She must hold out, she
told herself, just simply by force of will hold out, till she was away
from him. After that, chaos--for thoughts, discoveries, apprehensions of
possibilities in human intercourse hitherto undreamed of, were marshalled
round her in c