"On the contrary, they go very well," he said, "but I will not roast your chicken in my cell. We will build a wood fire in the open, on the shores of the creek, and I will roast your chicken for you there. But you must eat it in your fingers. And there will be no candle-light, only the light of the fire."
"And perhaps the night-jar you told me about will not be silent," she said.
"Perhaps!"
He smiled at her across the table, and she had a sudden vision of the fire they would build, on the shore beside the water, and how the flames would hiss and crackle in the air, and how the good burnt smell of roasting chicken would come to their nostrils. The cooking would absorb him, even as his drawing of the heron absorbed him yesterday, and his planning of piracy would do to-morrow. She noticed, for the first time, that William had left them, and rising from the table she blew the candles, and led the way into the salon.
"Smoke, if you wish," she said, and there, on the mantelpiece before him, he recognised his jar of tobacco.
"The perfect hostess," he said.
She sat down, but he went on standing by the mantelpiece, filling his pipe, looking about the room as he did so.
"It is all very different from the winter," he said. "When I came then, the covers shrouded the furniture, and there were no flowers. There was something austere about the room. You have changed all that."
"All empty houses are like sepulchres," she said.
"Ah, yes-but I don't mean that Navron would have remained a sepulchre, had anyone else broken the silence."
She did not answer. She was not sure what he meant.
For a while there was silence between them, and then he said, "What brought you to Navron, in the end?"
She played with a tassel of the cushion behind her head.
"You told me yesterday that Lady St. Columb was something of a celebrity," she said, "that you had heard gossip of her escapades. Perhaps I was tired of Lady St. Columb, and wanted to become somebody else."
"In other words-you wished to escape?"
"That is what William told me you would say."
"William has experience. He has seen me do the same sort of thing. Once there was a man called Jean-Benoit Aubery, who had estates in Brittany, money, friends, responsibilities, and William was his servant. And William's master became weary of Jean-Benoit Aubery, and so he turned into a pirate, and built La Mouette"
"And is it really possible to become somebody else?"
"I have found it so."
"And you are happy?"
"I am content."
"What is the difference?"
"Between happiness and contentment? Ah, there you have me. It is not easy to put into words. Contentment is a state of mind and body when the two work in harmony, and there is no friction. The mind is at peace, and the body also. The two are sufficient to themselves. Happiness is elusive-coming perhaps once in a life-time-and approaching ecstasy."
"Not a continuous thing, like contentment?"
"No, not a continuous thing. But there are, after all, degrees of happiness. I remember, for instance, one particular moment after I became a pirate, and I fought my first action, against one of your merchant ships. I was successful, and towed my prize into port. That was a good moment, exhilarating, happy. I had achieved the thing I had set myself to do, of which I had been uncertain."
"Yes," she said. "Yes-I understand that,"
"And there have been other moments too. The pleasure felt after I have made a drawing, and I look at the drawing, and it has the shape and form of what I meant. That is another degree of happiness."
"It is easier then, for a man," she said, "a man is a creator, his happiness comes in the things that he achieves. What he makes with his hands, with his brain, with his talents."
"Possibly," he said. "But women are not idle. Women have babies. That is a greater achievement than the making of a drawing, or the planning of an action."
"Do you think so?"
"Of course."
"I never considered it before."
"You have children, have you not?"
"Yes-two."
"And when you handled them for the first time, were you not conscious of achievement? Did you not say to yourself, 'This is something I have done-myself'? And was not that near to happiness?"
She thought a moment, and then smiled at him.
"Perhaps," she said.
He turned away from her, and began touching the things on the mantelpiece. "You must not forget I am a pirate," he said; "here you are leaving your treasures about in careless fashion. This little casket, for instance, is worth several hundred pounds,"
"Ah, but then I trust you."
"That is unwise."
"I throw myself upon your mercy."
"I am known to be merciless."
He replaced the casket, and picked up the miniature of Harry. He considered it a moment, whistling softly.
"Your husband?" he said.
"Yes."
He made no comment, but put the miniature back into its place, and the fashion in which he did so, saying nothing of Harry, of the likeness, of the miniature itself, gave to her a curious sense of embarrassment. She felt instinctively that he thought little of Harry, considered him a dolt, and she wished suddenly that the miniature had not been there, or that Harry was in some way different.
"It was taken many years ago," she found herself saying, as though in defence; "before we were married."
"Oh, yes," he said. There was a pause, and then- "That portrait of you," he said, "upstairs in your room, was that done about the same time?"
"Yes," she said, "at least-it was done soon after I became betrothed to Harry."
"And you have been married-how long?"
"Six years. Henrietta is five."
"And what decided you upon marriage?"
She stared back at him, at a loss for a moment; his question was so unexpected. And then, because he spoke so quietly, with such composure, as though he were asking why she had chosen a certain dish for dinner, caring little about the answer, she told him the truth, not realising that she had never admitted it before.
"Harry was amusing," she said, "and I liked his eyes."
As she spoke it seemed to her that her voice sounded very far distant, as though it were not herself who spoke, but somebody else.
He did not answer. He had moved away from the mantelpiece, and had sat down on a chair, and was pulling out a piece of paper from the great pocket of his coat. She went on staring in front of her, brooding suddenly upon Harry, upon the past, thinking of their marriage in London, the vast assembly of people, and how poor Harry, very youthful, scared possibly at the responsibilities before him, and having little imagination, drank too much on their wedding-night, so as to appear bolder than he was, and only succeeded in seeming a very great sot and a fool. And they had journeyed about England, to meet his friends, for ever staying in other people's houses in an atmosphere strained and artificial, and she-starting Henrietta almost immediately- became irritable, fretful, entirely unlike herself, so unaccustomed to ill-health of any kind. The impossibility of riding, of walking, of doing all the things she wished to do, increased her irritation. It would have helped could she have talked to Harry, asked for his understanding, but understanding, to him, meant neither silence, nor tenderness, nor quiet, but a rather hearty boisterousness, a forced jollity, a making of noise in an endeavour to cheer her, and on top of it all great lavish caresses that helped her not at all.
She looked up suddenly, and saw that her guest was drawing her.
"Do you mind?" he said.
"No," she said, "of course not," wondering what sort of drawing he would make, and she watched his hands, skilful and quick, but she could not see the paper, for it rested against his knee.