The Café de la Paix
turb him. Presently O'Rourke took up the thread of his thoughts aloud.
"I mind the night I left ye all," he said. "'Twas while the Eirene still lay at Marseilles,—the day afther ye had drilled this hole in me. … We were standing in the bows, madame and I, looking at the moonlight painting a path across the sea to Algiers. … Faith! she was that lovely I clean forgot meself. Before I knew what I was about, I had been speaking the matter of ten minutes, and she knew it all. … And there was no one at all to see, so she was in me arms. … Faith! I dunno why I am telling ye all this."
"Continue, my friend. If you had told her of your love, why, then, did you go—as I remember you went—that very night?"
"'Twas me pride—not alone for meself, but for her! Who was I to be making love to the sweetest woman in the wide world? … Anyway, 'twas then it was decided upon betwixt herself and me."
"What was—?"
"That I was to go forth and seek me fortune and come back; to claim her when I could do so without hurting her in the eyes of the world. I had a gold sovereign in me pocket, and I took it out and broke it with me two hands and gave her the half of it. … She kissed the other half and I put it away to remember her by. … She was to sind it me when she needed me. … And then I was making so bold as to kiss her hand, but she would not let me. … And I left her there and dropped down over the side, with all the world reeling and no thought at all in me but of her white, sweet face in the moonlight, and the touch of her lips upon me own! … Two months later I was in India, seeking me fortune. And I'm still doing that."
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