“But yesterday you said—­what did you say, Paul, about the power of the human will over environment and fate?”

“I don’t remember.  That was yesterday.  I’m not the same to-day, at all.  And to-morrow I may be quite different.”

“Behold the consistency of man.  But Fate, Paul—­what makes Fate?  I have always been taught to believe that the world is what we make it!”

“And it is true, too, that in a way we may make the world what we will, each creating it anew for himself, after his own pattern—­but after all, Opal, that is Fate.  For what we are, we put into these worlds of ours, and what we are is what our ancestors have made us—­and that is what I understand by destiny.”

“Ah, Paul, you have so many noble theories of life.”

His boyish face grew troubled and perplexed.

“I thought I had, Opal—­till I knew you!  Now I do not know!  Fate seems to have taken a hand in the game and my theories are cast aside like worthless cards.  I begin to see more clearly that we cannot always choose our paths.”

“Can one ever, Paul?”

“Perhaps not!  Once I believed implicitly in the omnipotence of the human will to make life just what one wished.  Now”—­and he searched her eyes—­“I know better.”

“Unlucky Opal, to cross your path!” she sighed.  “Are you superstitious, Paul?  Do you know that opals bring bad luck to those who come beneath the spell of their influence?”

“I’ll risk the bad luck, Opal!”

And she smiled.

And he thought as he looked at her, how well she understood him!  What an inspiration would her love have brought to such a life as he meant his to be!  What a Recamier or du Barry she would have made, with her piquante, captivating face, her dark, lustrous, compelling eyes, her significant gestures, which despite many wayward words and phrases, expressed only lofty and majestic thoughts!  Her whole regal little body, with its irresistible power and charm, was so far beyond most women!  She was life and truth and ambition incarnate!  She was the spirit of dreams and the breath of idealism and the very soul of love and longing.

Would she feel insulted, he wondered, had she known he had dared to compare her, even in his own thoughts, with a king’s mistress?  He meant no insult—­far from it!  But would she have understood it had she known?

Paul fancied that she would.

“They may not have been moral, those women,” he thought, “that is, what the world calls ‘moral’ in the present day, but they possessed power, marvellous power, over men and kingdoms.  Opal Ledoux was created to exert power—­her very breath is full of force and vitality!”

“Yes,” he repeated aloud after due deliberation, “I’ll risk the bad luck if you’ll be good tome!”

“Am I not?”

“Not always.”

“Well, I will be to-day.  See!  I have a new book—­a sad little love-tale, they say—­just the thing for two to read at sea,” and with a heightened color she began to read.