I haven't the nerve to anticipate it."
He started toward the boats, and at that instant he caught sight of the
face of Ninitta. She was standing perfectly quiet, with her arm around
one of the small pillars supporting the covering to the deck. She was
fully dressed, though her head was uncovered and the rings of hair
clung about her face. Fenton forgot everything else at sight of her. In
a moment of supreme egotism there flashed through his mind the
consequences of Ninitta's being here. The consciousness of all that lay
between them made him keenly alive to the evil construction which might
be placed upon her having fled from home on the same boat which carried
him. He realized, with a profound feeling of impotence, that if they
were lost together he should be forever unable to explain or to dispel
the suspicion to which her presence might give rise; he felt with keen
bitterness how useless would be all his cleverness, and his heart
swelled with rage at the thought that his adroitness would be wasted
for lack of opportunity.
He forgot the danger, the terror of the wreck, the shrieking of the
women, the brutality of the men, and, for the moment, felt with the
keen desperation of enormous vanity the danger to his reputation. He
forced his way madly across the deck and confronted her in the ghastly
light of the swinging lantern and the gray foregleams of the coming
dawn.
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