and uninviting enough to guarantee him
immunity from any intrusion. Below him, as he looked over the rail,
the steerage deck, dim, dismal, forbidding, was deserted save for a few
people, who, probably choosing the lesser of two evils, braving the
night in preference to sharing the fetid atmosphere below with many
hundred others, were huddled about in miserable discomfort. He stared
at this sight for a moment; then turned around, and leaned with his
back against the rail to face the gay, brilliantly-lighted scene far
down at the other end of the promenade deck. He watched this
sullenly--the extravagantly gowned women and their escorts coming and
going like hiving bees from the deck to the saloon ... clustering
around the entrance ... retailing the ship's gossip ... a breath of air
... a cigarette ... and back to the dance again. Who cared what the
night was like? Who cared if, far up above on the mighty liner's
bridge, oil-skinned figures peered out anxiously into the night? Who
cared or thought of those huddled forms on the steerage deck? Who
cared--the sea was smooth, and one could dance?

Jean dug his hands deep down into his pockets and closed them fiercely.
The long, hoarse-throated cry of the fog siren boomed out and vibrated
through the ship--and died away; and, sharp in contrast, came again the
calm, steady pulse and throb of the engines, and laughter, and the
dreamy, sobbing notes of a waltz.

And now a depression, utter and profound, a more grievous thing than
the fury that had preceded it, was settling upon him. It was not only
Myrna, the knowledge forced home upon him that he was but a vehicle for
her ambitions, that their marriage was to be a hollow thing, a form, a
husk covering the semblance of love--it was the sea! Until this trip
he had not seen it since he had left Bernay-sur-Mer. It held a
thousand memories. He had fought them back angrily, defiantly ever
since he had come on board--but they had been present almost from the
hour that the shores of the France he loved had faded from sight, and
at unexpected moments this thing and that had flashed suddenly upon
him, striking with quick, stabbing passes under his guard. But now,
his spirits at a low ebb, reckless of combating even poignant
memories--those memories were surging overwhelmingly upon him. It
seemed to mirror his life like some strange kaleidoscope, the sea that
he had always known; it seemed to stir something within him that wa