“But—­eleven shillings, Louis!” she said, laughing at the absurdity of it.

“We’ve got to get the money!” he cried wildly.  “If I do a burglary!  Look here, Marcella, the only thing is for me to get boozed and borrow it!  If I had half a dozen whiskies I’d go to the Governor-General himself and get it out of him!  But if I were not boozed I couldn’t ask—­ask even for the job of gorse-grubbing or road sweeping.  I haven’t even the courage to ask you for a kiss if I’m not boozed.”

He looked at her.  His eyes were infinitely pathetic.

“Is there anyone about?” she whispered.

“Only the man in the crow’s-nest,” he said, “why?”

“Never mind him—­give me a kiss, Louis.  I’m not frightened, if you are!” she whispered softly, and half awkward and shy he held her in his arms, gathering courage as he felt how she trembled, and guessed how his kisses made her soft and helpless in his arms.  “Let’s forget worries for a while—­we’ll never be sitting on an anchor in the Indian Ocean again, in a sea of ghost lights, shall we, Louis?”

“Say ‘Louis dear,’” he ordered, gathering courage, kissing her hand.  She said it, a little hesitatingly.

“We never say words like that at home,” she whispered.  “Only mother did, because she was English—­”

“I’m English, too.  I like words like that.  Now say ‘Louis darling.’”

“It sounds as if you’re a baby.”

“So I am—­Marcella’s baby,” he whispered.  “Say ‘Louis darling.’”

“I can’t, Louis,” she said uneasily, “I can’t say love things.  I can only do them.  I love you—­oh, most dreadfully, but I can’t talk about it.”

She buried her face on his shoulder.  Through his thin canvas coat she could feel his heart thumping as hers was.

“I’m going to kiss that funny little hollow place at the bottom of your neck,” she whispered in a smothered voice.  “What a good thing you don’t wear collars in the Indian Ocean!  Louis, tell me all the funny Latin names for the bones in your fingers, and I’ll kiss them all—­I can’t say silly words to you like—­like Violet could.”

After a while he tried to carry his point.

“Now say ‘Louis darling,’” he insisted.

She shook her head.

“Why can’t you be like an ordinary girl?” he objected, holding her tight so that he could look into her face.  “Ordinary girls don’t mind calling a chap darling.”

“I can’t, anyway.  I never can talk much, unless I’m simply taken out of myself and made to.  I can’t imagine what we’ll find to talk about all the time when we’re married.  But—­do you know, whenever we get up here in the dark like this, I always wish it was Sydney to-morrow, and we could be married.  I hate to be away from you a minute; I wish we could be together all day and all night, without stopping for meal times—­”

“You’ve got the tropics badly, my child,” he said, laughing a little forcedly, as he tried to light a cigarette with trembling fingers and finally gave it up.