I

CONFIDENCES

Beautiful, beautiful was that night! No air that stirred; the black
smoke from the funnels of the mail steamer _Zanzibar_ lay low over the
surface of the sea like vast, floating ostrich plumes that vanished one
by one in the starlight. Benita Beatrix Clifford, for that was her full
name, who had been christened Benita after her mother and Beatrix after
her father's only sister, leaning idly over the bulwark rail, thought
to herself that a child might have sailed that sea in a boat of bark and
come safely into port.

Then a tall man of about thirty years of age, who was smoking a cigar,
strolled up to her. At his coming she moved a little as though to make
room for him beside her, and there was something in the motion which,
had anyone been there to observe it, might have suggested that these two
were upon terms of friendship, or still greater intimacy. For a moment
he hesitated, and while he did so an expression of doubt, of distress
even, gathered on his face. It was as though he understood that a great
deal depended on whether he accepted or declined that gentle invitation,
and knew not which to do.

Indeed, much did depend upon it, no less than the destinies of both of
them. If Robert Seymour had gone by to finish his cigar in solitude, why
then this story would have had a very different ending; or, rather, who
can say how it might have ended? The dread, foredoomed event with which
that night was big would have come to its awful birth leaving certain
words unspoken. Violent separation must have ensued, and even if both of
them had survived the terror, what prospect was there that their lives
would again have crossed each other in that wide Africa?

But it was not so fated, for just as he put his foot forward to continue
his march Benita spoke in her low and pleasant voice.

"Are you going to the smoking-room or to the saloon to dance, Mr.
Seymour? One of the officers just told me that there is to be a dance,"
she added, in explanation, "because it is so calm that we might fancy
ourselves ashore."

"Neither," he answered. "The smoking-room is stuffy, and my dancing days
are over. No; I proposed to take exercise after that big dinner, and
then to sit in a chair and fall asleep. But," he added, and his voice
grew interested, "how did you know that it was I? You never turned your
head."