Miss
Tavish, who would not for the world have violated one of the social
conventions of her set, longed, as many women do, for the sort of freedom
and the sort of applause which belongs to women who succeed upon the
stage. Not that she would have forfeited her position by dancing at a
theatre for money; but; within limits, she craved the excitement, the
abandon, the admiration, that her grace and passion could win. This was
not at all the ambition which led the Egyptian queen Hatshepsu to assume
the dress of a man, but rather that more famous aspiration which led the
daughter of Herodias, in a pleasure-loving court, to imitate and excel
the professional dancing-girls. If in this inclination of the women of
the day, which is not new, but has characterized all societies to which
wealth has brought idleness, there was a note of demoralization, it did
not seem so to Jack, who found the world day by day more pleasing and
more complaisant.
As the months went by, everything prospered with him on his drifting
voyage. Of all voyages, that is the easiest to make which has no port in
view, that depends upon the varying winds, if the winds happen to be soft
and the chance harbors agreeable.
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