Chapter 9 - Page 2

Countess Courteau was not offended. Had it not been for that pressure upon his shoulder Phillips would have believed that his words had gone unheard, for she entirely ignored them.

"Night! Wind! Storm!" she said, in a queer, meditative tone. "They stir the blood, don't they? Not yours, perhaps, but mine. I was always restless. You see, I was born on the ocean--on the way over here. My father was a sailor; he was a stormy-weather man. At a time like this everything in me quickens, I'm aware of impulses I never feel at other times--desires I daren't yield to. It was on a stormy night that the Count proposed to me." She laughed shortly, bitterly. "I believed him. I'd believe anything--I'd do, I'd dare anything--when the winds are reckless." She turned abruptly to her listener and it seemed to him that her eyes were strangely luminous. "Have you ever felt that way?"

He shook his head.

"Lucky for you; it would be a man's undoing. Tell me, what am I? What do you make of me?" While the young man felt for an answer she ran on: "I'd like to know. What sort of woman do you consider me? How have I impressed you? Speak plainly--no sentiment. You're a clean-minded, unsophisticated boy. I'm curious to hear--"

"I can't speak like a boy," he said, gravely, but with more than a hint of resentment in his tone, "for--I'm not a boy. Not any longer."

"Oh yes, you are! You're fresh and wholesome and honorable and-- Well, only boys are that. What do I seem, to you?"

"You're a chameleon. There's nobody in the world quite like you. Why, at this minute you're different even to yourself. You--take my breath--"

"Do you consider me harsh, masculine--?"

"Oh no!"

"I'm glad of that. I'm not, really. I've had a hard experience and my eyes were opened early. I know poverty, disappointment, misery, everything unpleasant, but I'm smart and I know how to get ahead. I've never stood still. I've learned how to fight, too, for I've had to make my own way. Why, Pierce, you're the one man who ever did me an unselfish favor or a real, disinterested courtesy. Do you wonder that I want to know what kind of a creature you consider me?"

"Perhaps I'm not altogether unselfish," he told her, sullenly.

The Countess did not heed this remark; she did not seem to read the least significance into it. Her chin was upon her knees, her face was turned again to the darkness whence came the rising voice of stormy waters. The wind whipped a strand of her hair into Phillips' face.

"It is hard work fighting men--and women, too--and I'm awfully tired. Tired inside, you understand. One gets tired fighting alone--always alone. One has dreams of--well, dreams. It's a pity they never come true."

"What are some of