“Don’t you see that’s enough to start me drinking?” he burst out passionately.  “Whenever I get hipped about anything—­I—­t-told you I know myself very well.  I’d only h-had one drink when you came along.  Did you notice me?”

“Notice you!  Oh no!” she cried scornfully.

“Y-you know w-what a nervous f-fool I am; how I’m afraid of my own shadow.  But when I’ve had only one whisky I’d tackle Satan himself!  You must have noticed that I was jolly enough then!  I used to be the ringleader in all the stunts at the hospital.  But when I don’t drink I’m afraid to face people.  Do you know I haven’t had a meal since I came aboard, except your piece of cake and the tea I’ve made?  And now I’ve thrown my teapot overboard.”

“But whyever haven’t you had a meal?”

“All those damn fools in the saloon are looking at me!”

“Oh, you idiot!” she cried, and suddenly sat down on the anchor beside him, all her indignation at the personal slight and the personal annoyance gone.

“You see how it is, Marcella,” he groaned.  “I can call you Marcella, can’t I?  Just till we get to Sydney.  It sounds a Roman, fighting sort of name.  You see how wobbly I am!  I’ve had the devil’s own time since we left Tilbury, lying there in my bunk, thinking, thinking—­and the more I think the more sorry I get for myself, and the more I hate other people, and the more nervous I get.  I knew I was in for a bad attack.  I always do when I get away from home.  Reaction I suppose.  I put up the devil of a fight, and then when I felt it was whacking me I wrote to you.”

“Well, I said I’d come, didn’t I?  And I waited,” she reminded him.

“Yes, and then I saw you talking to that idiotic fellow in a high collar, and I thought, ‘Oh, everything be damned!’ So I chummed up to the pock-marked chap.  He was glad enough to have me!  Wants me to play poker.”

He buried his face, and she could scarcely hear his words.

“Oh, God,” he muttered, “you can see how it is!  All the time I’m not drunk I’m worrying and thinking what a hell of a mess I’ve made of things.  Th-the minute I’m even sniffing whisky I see everything in a warm, rosy glow.  When I’m not drunk everyone’s an enemy; when I’m drunk they’re all jolly good fellows.  Marcella, I’m alone on earth, and I don’t want to be.”

She sat there, impatient with herself for her ignorance, her hands clasping and unclasping each other nervously.

“Louis—­” she began.  She could get no further.  “Louis—­what’s one to do?  You say you’re a doctor and understand yourself.  It seems to me you’ve really a disease, haven’t you?  Just as much as—­as measles?”

“Of course it’s a disease!  But don’t you see how hopeless it is?  It’s a disease in which the nurse and the doctor both get the huff with the patient because he’s such a damned nuisance to them!  And he, poor devil, by the very nature of the disease, fights every step of the treatment.”