Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/139

the peace of nations and to the peace of men’s minds. The matter is wholly ridiculous, of course. She is probably a shrewish' bitch who takes her bright features from the legend. But how might such a legend be started? Your health, Cœur de Gris. You will be a good friend to me and true?”

“I will, my Captain.”

And again they sat silently, drinking the rich wine.

“But there is much suffering bound up in women,” Henry Morgan began, as though he had just finished speaking. “They seem to carry pain about with them in a leaking package. You have loved often, they say, Cœur de Gris. Have you not felt the pain they carry?”

“No, sir, I do not think I have. Surely I have been assailed by regrets and little sorrows—everyone has; but mostly I have found only pleasure among women.”

“Ah, you are lucky,” the captain said. “You are filled with luck not to have known the pain. My own life was poisoned by love. This life I lead was forced on me by lost love.”

“Why, how was that, sir? Surely, I had not thought that you—”

“I know; I know how I must have changed so that even you laugh a little at the thought of my being in love. I could not now command the affection of the daughter of an Earl.”

“The daughter of an Earl, sir?”

“Yes, an Earl’s daughter. We loved too perfectly—too passionately. Once she came to me in