Frank sighed as he read it.  Everything in the world seemed wrong and at cross-purposes.  Those who had one thing invariably longed for something else, and there was no content or happiness or satisfaction anywhere.  The better off were the acquiescent, who took the good and the bad with the same composure and found their only pleasure in their work.  Best off of all were the dead whose sufferings were over.  But after all it was sweet to be loved, even if one did not love back, and Frank was very tender with the little letter and put it carefully in his pocket-book.  Yes, it was sweet to be loved.  He said this over and over to himself, and wondered whether Florence felt the same to him as he did to Cassie.  It seemed to explain so much.  It seemed the key to her strange regard for him.  He asked himself whether it could be true that she had wilfully ordered the ship to sea in order to prevent him going to the dance.  The thought stirred him inexpressibly.  What other explanation was there if this was not the one?  And she had deserted the count, who was away in London on a day’s business; deserted the Paquita at anchor in the roads!  He was frightened at his own exultation.  Suppose he were wrong in this surmise!  Suppose it were just another of her unaccountable caprices!

They ran down Channel at full speed and at night were abreast of the Scilly lights, driving towards the Bay of Biscay in the teeth of an Equinoctial gale.  At the behest of one girl eighty men had to endure the discomfort of a storm at sea, and a great steel ship, straining and quivering, was flung into the perilous night.  It seemed a misuse of power that, at a woman’s whim, so many lives and so noble and costly a fabric could be risked—­and risked for nothing.  From the captain on the bridge, dripping in his oil-skins, to the coal-passers and firemen below who fed the mighty furnaces, to the cooks in the galley, the engineers, the electrician on duty, the lookout man in the bow clinging to the life-line when the Minnehaha buried her nose out of sight—­all these perforce had to endure and suffer at Florence’s bidding without question or revolt.

Frank’s elation passed and left him in a bitter humour towards her.  It was not right, he said to himself, not right at all.  She ought to show a little consideration for the men who had served her so well and faithfully.  Besides, it was unworthy of her to betray such pettiness and spoil Cassie’s dance.  He felt for the girl’s humiliation, and, though not in love with her, he was conscious of a sentiment that hated to see her hurt.  He would not accept Florence’s invitation to dine in the saloon, sending word that he had a headache and begged to be excused; and after dinner, when she sought him out on deck and tried to make herself very sweet to him, he was purposely reserved and distant, and look the first opportunity to move away.  He was angry, disheartened, and resentful, all in one.