He was after all rather dry and he went about his business.  He had made me uneasy, and instead of going below I took a few turns more.  The other walkers dropped off pair by pair—­they were all men—­till at last I was alone.  Then after a little I quitted the field.  Jasper and his companion were still behind their lifeboat.  Personally I greatly preferred our actual conditions, but as I went down I found myself vaguely wishing, in the interest of I scarcely knew what, unless it had been a mere superstitious delicacy, that we might have half a gale.

Miss Mavis turned out, in sea-phrase, early; for the next morning I saw her come up only a short time after I had finished my breakfast, a ceremony over which I contrived not to dawdle.  She was alone and Jasper Nettlepoint, by a rare accident, was not on deck to help her.  I went to meet her—­she was encumbered as usual with her shawl, her sun-umbrella and a book—­and laid my hands on her chair, placing it near the stern of the ship, where she liked best to be.  But I proposed to her to walk a little before she sat down, and she took my arm after I had put her accessories into the chair.  The deck was clear at that hour and the morning light gay; one had an extravagant sense of good omens and propitious airs.  I forget what we spoke of first, but it was because I felt these things pleasantly; and not to torment my companion nor to test her, that I couldn’t help exclaiming cheerfully after a moment, as I have mentioned having done the first day:  “Well, we’re getting on, we’re getting on!”

“Oh yes, I count every hour.”

“The last days always go quicker,” I said, “and the last hours—!”

“Well, the last hours?” she asked; for I had instinctively checked myself.

“Oh one’s so glad then that it’s almost the same as if one had arrived.  Yet we ought to be grateful when the elements have been so kind to us,” I added.  “I hope you’ll have enjoyed the voyage.”

She hesitated ever so little.  “Yes, much more than I expected.”

“Did you think it would be very bad?”

“Horrible, horrible!”

The tone of these words was strange, but I hadn’t much time to reflect upon it, for turning round at that moment I saw Jasper Nettlepoint come toward us.  He was still distant by the expanse of the white deck, and I couldn’t help taking him in from head to foot as he drew nearer.  I don’t know what rendered me on this occasion particularly sensitive to the impression, but it struck me that I saw him as I had never seen him before, saw him, thanks to the intense sea-light, inside and out, in his personal, his moral totality.  It was a quick, a vivid revelation; if it only lasted a moment it had a simplifying certifying effect.  He was intrinsically a pleasing apparition, with his handsome young face and that marked absence of any drop in his personal arrangements which, more than any one I’ve ever seen, he managed to exhibit