In the forward cabin he presented her to his mate.  The crude Toni experienced the same hallucination that had perturbed all the others on the boat.  What a woman!...  At the very first glance he understood and excused the captain’s conduct.  Then he fixed his eyes upon her with an expression of alarm, as though her presence made him tremble for the fate of the steamer:  but finally he succumbed, dominated by this lady who was examining the saloon as though she had come to remain in it forever.

For a few moments Freya was interested in the hairy ugliness of Toni.  He was a true Mediterranean, just the kind she had imagined to herself,—­a faun pursuing nymphs.  Ulysses laughed at the eulogies which she passed on his mate.

“In his shoes,” she continued, “he ought to have pretty little hoofs like a goat’s.  He must know how to play the flute.  Don’t you think so, Captain?...”

The faun, wrinkled and wrathful, took himself off, saluting her stolidly as he went away.  Ferragut felt greatly relieved at his absence, since he was fearful of some rude speech from Toni.

Finding herself alone with Ulysses, she ran through the great room from one side to the other.

“Is here where you live, my dear shark?...  Let me see everything.  Let me poke around everywhere.  Everything of yours interests me.  You will not say now that I do not love you.  What a boast for Captain Ferragut!  The ladies come to seek him on his ship....”

She interrupted her ironic and affectionate chatter in order to defend herself gently from the sailor.  He, forgetting the past, and wishing to take advantage of the happiness so suddenly presented to him, was kissing the nape of her neck.

“There,... there!” she sighed.  “Now let me look around.  I feel the curiosity of a child.”

She opened the piano,—­the poor piano of the Scotch captain—­and some thin and plaintive chords, showing many years’ lack of tuning, filled the saloon with the melancholy of resuscitated memories.

The melody was like that of the musical boxes that we find forgotten in the depths of a wardrobe among the clothes of some deceased old lady.  Freya declared that it smelled of withered roses.

Then, leaving the piano, she opened one after the other, all the doors of the staterooms surrounding the saloon.  She stopped at the captain’s sleeping room without wishing to pass the threshold, without loosening her hold on the brass doorknob in her right hand.  Ferragut behind her, was pushing her with treacherous gentleness, at the same time repeating his caresses on her neck.

“No; here, no,” she said.  “Not for anything in the world!...  I will be yours, I promise you; I give you my word of honor.  But where I will and when it seems best to me....  Very soon, Ulysses!”

He felt complete gratification in all these affirmations made in a caressing and submissive voice, all possible pride in such spontaneous, affectionate address, equivalent to the first surrender.