“Why is it that you’re honest with me?” she asked him.

“Lord knows!  I suppose it’s because I’ll disintegrate and go over the side in shivers if I can’t get something off my chest.  You don’t seem disgusted with me—­Lord, everyone else is!  And I’m the loneliest devil on earth.”

“I’m glad you told me.  Let’s be friends, Louis—­till we get to Sydney, anyway.”

“I never have friends.  I lie to them, and they find me out.  I borrow money from them and don’t pay it back, and then I’m afraid to face them.  I make fools of them in public; I’m irritable with them.”

“I’m warned,” she said with a laugh.  “I’m not afraid of you.”

Suddenly he turned round.  All the time he had been talking his back had been half turned to her.  She saw the crimson end of the cigarette glowing.  It was flung overboard.  He groped for and found both her hands.

“Look here, this is the maddest thing I’ve ever done yet—­but will you take it on, being friends with me?”

“I want to.  I’m lonely, you know.  I could have cried to-night, really.”

“But—­look here.  I’m begging, yes begging, this of you.  When I lie to you, insult me, will you?  You’ll know.  You’ve seen me honest to-night, but sometimes a thing gets hold of me and I lie like hell!  I’ll tell you the most amazing, most circumstantial tales—­just as you told me this afternoon—­and you’ll believe me.  But I implore you, don’t believe me!  Heaps of people have lent me money because they’ve believed what I’ve told them about my wife or my mother or my child dying.  Lord, I’m a waster!  But if I can find someone who’ll be hard with me, I think I might make a stand.  Look here, I promised the Mater, as this was my last week at home, and I haven’t had a drink since Monday.  That’s four days to the good.  If I promise you there’s a faint chance I won’t do it.  Do you mind?”

“I’ll watch you,” she said calmly.  “And I’ll tell you if you tell me lies.  But I don’t believe you’ll do any such thing!”

“Don’t you?  Do you believe in me?” he cried.

“Why not?  I think you’re a fearful duffer, but naturally I believe in you,” she said calmly.

“I know why I came by this ship!  It’s a miracle.  I believe I’m going to make a stand now, I really do!  It’s fate, and nothing else.  There’s an Anchor boat I was to have gone by—­via the Cape, you know.  She sailed last week, and I couldn’t get off in time.  I wanted to wait for the next as I’ve not been to the Cape.  But the Pater couldn’t put up with me for another week, so out I came!  I know why I came!  I came to meet you!”

“Do you think so?” she said wonderingly.

“I do!  I’ve never in all my life told the truth about myself before!  If you only knew what that means!  I’m too nervous as a rule.  But don’t you notice the difference?  Of course you’re not trained, so you wouldn’t notice as I should.  But I’m not even stammering half so much.  It’s jolly good of you to listen to me—­and it’s jolly good for me, because I’ve no reason to try to get at you, or to get my own back on you, as I have with my people all the time.”