CHAPTER X

A SINGULAR COUNCIL

The four sat together under the shadow of the helmsman, by whom they were regarded as voyagers in debate upon the question of some hours further on salt water.  ‘No bora,’ he threw in at intervals, to assure them that the obnoxious wind of the Adriatic need not disturb their calculations.

It was an extraordinary sitting, but none of the parties to it thought of it so when Nevil Beauchamp had plunged them into it.  He compelled them, even Renee—­and she would have flown had there been wings on her shoulders—­to feel something of the life and death issues present to his soul, and submit to the discussion, in plain language of the market-place, of the most delicate of human subjects for her, for him, and hardly less for the other two.  An overmastering fervour can do this.  It upsets the vessel we float in, and we have to swim our way out of deep waters by the directest use of the natural faculties, without much reflection on the change in our habits.  To others not under such an influence the position seems impossible.  This discussion occurred.  Beauchamp opened the case in a couple of sentences, and when the turn came for Renee to speak, and she shrank from the task in manifest pain, he spoke for her, and no one heard her contradiction.  She would have wished the fearful impetuous youth to succeed if she could have slept through the storm he was rousing.

Roland appealed to her.  ’You! my sister! it is you that consent to this wild freak, enough to break your father’s heart?’

He had really forgotten his knowledge of her character—­what much he knew—­in the dust of the desperation flung about her by Nevil Beauchamp.

She shook her head; she had not consented.

‘The man she loves is her voice and her will,’ said Beauchamp.  ’She gives me her hand and I lead her.’

Roland questioned her.  It could not be denied that she had given her hand, and her bewildered senses made her think that it had been with an entire abandonment; and in the heat of her conflict of feelings, the deliciousness of yielding to him curled round and enclosed her, as in a cool humming sea-shell.

‘Renee!’ said Roland.

‘Brother!’ she cried.

‘You see that I cannot suffer you to be borne away.’

‘No; do not!’

But the boat was flying fast from Venice, and she could have fallen at his feet and kissed them for not countermanding it.

‘You are in my charge, my sister.’

‘Yes.’

‘And now, Nevil, between us two,’ said Roland.

Beauchamp required no challenge.  He seemed, to Rosamund Culling, twice older than he was, strangely adept, yet more strangely wise of worldly matters, and eloquent too.  But it was the eloquence of frenzy, madness, in Roland’s ear.  The arrogation of a terrible foresight that harped on present and future to persuade him of the righteousness of this headlong proceeding advocated by his friend, vexed his natural equanimity.  The argument was out of the domain of logic.  He could hardly sit to listen, and tore at his moustache at each end.  Nevertheless his sister listened.  The mad Englishman accomplished the miracle of making her listen, and appear to consent.