strong desire and a sense of fair play. But above all things he hated vacillation. The girl was his for the taking—why hesitate? The risk for her? There were ways of obviating that.
He put the odious consideration out of his mind and began to undress.
But in a moment he found himself at the door again, listening. Flinging the last scruple to the winds, he left the room, tiptoed along the passage, listened at her door, then gently opened it.
The moon had risen and its beams made a pool of light on the carpet. He saw walls decked with magazine-cover girls, and a heap of garments strewn on a chair. Her face, turned slightly away from him, looked plump, like a baby's, and one hand was thrown out. She was fast asleep, and the room smelt—rather too much like a bedroom.
Silently as he had come, he regained his room, and sat on the window-sill to laugh. As if by magic his ardour had vanished, leaving him comfortable, yet out of sorts. Gradually the spell of the night wrapped itself round him. For a long while he sat gazing towards the silvered sea, drinking in the fragrance of unseen flowers and dew-sprinkled earth, a fragrance that made him home-sick for a home that didn't exist. Early in the morning he would set out for the ship. To his shipmates he would say nothing of the adventure. How should any sailor understand his anomalous blend of depravity and squeamishness? To think that virtue could be suspended on such tenuous filaments!
A distant clock struck the hour, and an alien odour crept into his nostrils—the odour of eucalyptus. He scarcely noticed this phenomenon, and like a true sailor fell asleep as soon as his head was pillowed. In his dreams, however, he heard the old chimes which had gained such an uncanny hold on him. Their message
