How could they have any meaning
to him--to him, Louie's lover? What would the whole world be to him, what
the sailing of the Sabrina, without Louie? And then a shiver ran across
him: what would Louie be to him without the sailing of the Sabrina! for
that, indeed, as he had said, was the top of his ambition, and that being
his ambition, perhaps ambition, was as strong with him as love.
But with this new discovery on Andrew's part of Mr. Maurice's desires,
Andrew could only recall circumstances, words, looks, hints: he could not
shape to himself any line of duty or its consequences: enough to see that
Mr. Maurice fancied his simple and thoughtless attentions to Frarnie to be
lover-like, and, approving him, looked kindly on them and made his plans
accordingly; enough to see that if he should reject this tacit proffer of
the daughter's hand, then the Sabrina was scarcely likely to be his; and
that in spite of such probability, the first and requisite thing in honor
for him to do was to tell Mr. Maurice of his marriage engagement with
Louie, and then, if the man had neither gratitude nor sense enough to
reward him for his assistance in saving the brig, to trust to fortune and
to time, that at last makes all things even. As he sat there listening to
the lapping of the water and idly watching the reflected stars peer up and
shatter in a hundred splinters with every wash of the dark tide, he could
not so instantaneously decide as to whether he should make this confession
or not.
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