the background of
this vision, as one sees a pale bluish shadow of a form in the
background of a bright, highly coloured portrait, I saw Mrs. Evans,
shrinking as the angel child developed, and cowering before that
nonchalant vampirism. A well-nourished young cannibal, I figure her, for
such characters need human beings for their sustenance, if you take the
trouble to observe their habits. I suppose she regarded me as
indigestible, for she kissed me without rapture, and I never saw her
again.

"And the next voyage we slipped back into our usual jog-trot round. Mr.
Bloom, that fine flower of professional culture, was replaced by one of
our skippers who had lost his license for a year for some highly
technical reason. Jack was rather perturbed by the prospect of having a
brother-captain under him, but the new chief-officer was temporarily
stunned by the blow fate had dealt him and was a good fellow anyhow.
Young Siddons, who was able to carry on by the time we sailed, said he
was a jolly decent old sort. Young Siddons and I had a good many talks
together that voyage. He was in sore need, you know, of somebody to
confide in. We all need that when we are in love. It has been my lot,
more than once, to be favoured with these confidences. Tactless? Oh, no.
As the Evanses said about children, these young hearts _know_. Yes, we
talked, and I received fresh light upon the mysteries of passion. As
Jack had said, young Siddons was the sort to take it hard. His face grew
thinner and there was a new and austere expression in his fine gray
eyes. We say easily, oh, the young don't die of love! But don't they?
Doesn't the youth we knew die? Don't we discover, presently, that a
firmer and more durable and perhaps slightly less lovable character has
appeared? So it seems to me. Not that Siddons was less lovable. But the
gay and somewhat care-free youth who had laughed so happily on the
voyage out when the girl had stopped for a while to chat with him was
dead. He had a memory to feed on now, a sombre-sweet reminiscence dashed
with the faint bitterness of an inevitable frustration. He took it out
of me, so to speak, using me as a confessor, not of sins, but of
illusions.

"He enlightened me, moreover, concerning the mishap which had befallen
him and thrown him so definitely out of the race. He had met M. Nikitos
on his way up to keep his tryst. She was standing at the door above
them, silhouetted against the light, when they met on the p