“Jump, Louis,” she cried wildly.

“Some flow’s—­for you, ole girl!” he cried, grinning loosely.  “Mished bally boat!  Catch, ole girl—­flow’s,” and he threw a great bunch of bedraggled-looking flowers that had very obviously been dropped several times in the greasy mud.  They fell helplessly into the water.  Marcella could not stop to think of anything sensible.  All she could see to do was to jump overboard to him and snatch him from the grinning men who were lurching at his side.  But as she put her hand on the rail the schoolmaster drew her back.

“Thass ri!  Come on, ole girl!  Marsh—­Marshella—­come an’ sleep in—­sh-sh-shtreets!  Got no money, ole girl.  Marsh—­Marshella! Parlez vous Franshay? Eh?  Ah, oui, oui.  Marsh-la!  I wan’ a woman!  Beau-ful wi’ shoulders—­”

“Oh—­oh,” she cried, burying her face in her hands in horror.

“I should advise you to go below,” said the schoolmaster’s restrained voice.

But she was irresistibly drawn to look at Louis, to plead with him with her eyes, though her voice refused to work.  And at that moment his unsteady foothold on the streaming planks gave way, and he sat down heavily.  There were six or eight feet of black water now between the ship and the quay, but Marcella could hear plainly the foolish laughter of the other three as they tried to lift him to his feet.  Ole Fred fell beside him, smashing a bottle as he did so, while several cans of tinned stuff went rolling out of his arms into the water.  Louis sat, laughing helplessly until he realized that Marcella’s white face was vanishing and he kissed his hand to her solemnly.

“Goo’ ni’ ole girl.  Going fin’ woman.  Meet thee at Philippi!  Ah, oui, oui!  Marsh—­ella!  Look!  Noblest Rom’ of them all!  Elements so mixshed—­mixshed—­can’t stan’ up, ole girl.”

She heard no more for the laughter of the others who were all sitting heaped together on the slippery boards now.  Sick and aching she stood there in the rain, scarcely realizing when the schoolmaster wrapped his raincoat round her; she was wondering whether she would have been happier if she had known he was lying dead in the mortuary, or ill in the hospital instead of sitting, too drunk to move out in the rain on the quay.  And suddenly she knew quite well.  He had said love was a hunger, and she would understand some day that it was as tigerish a hunger as drink hunger or any other.  In that moment of utter disgust and pain and despair she understood that that hunger had come to her though she did not yet comprehend it.  It had taken hold of her now—­she writhed at the indignity of the thought, but she knew quite well that she actually wanted his presence with her whether he were rude and overbearing, weak and appealing, superior and instructive or drunk and filthy.  She simply hungered to have him about her.  Always ready to query, to examine motives, she asked herself whether this were not, after all, merely a species of vanity in her that wanted to hold and save this helpless man who, it seemed, could not live for a day without her.  And she got no answer to the question—­the black water rushed past, chill and pitiless:  the rain-swept sky was starless, the streaming decks deserted.