had become a vivacious and malicious old ape.

Winding veils round their heads, the women walked on deck. They were
now moving steadily down the river, passing the dark shapes of ships
at anchor, and London was a swarm of lights with a pale yellow canopy
drooping above it. There were the lights of the great theatres, the
lights of the long streets, lights that indicated huge squares of
domestic comfort, lights that hung high in air. No darkness would
ever settle upon those lamps, as no darkness had settled upon them for
hundreds of years. It seemed dreadful that the town should blaze
for ever in the same spot; dreadful at least to people going away to
adventure upon the sea, and beholding it as a circumscribed mound,
eternally burnt, eternally scarred. From the deck of the ship the great
city appeared a crouched and cowardly figure, a sedentary miser.

Leaning over the rail, side by side, Helen said, "Won't you be cold?"
Rachel replied, "No. . . . How beautiful!" she added a moment later.
Very little was visible--a few masts, a shadow of land here, a line of
brilliant windows there. They tried to make head against the wind.

"It blows--it blows!" gasped Rachel, the words rammed down her throat.
Struggling by her side, Helen was suddenly overcome by the spirit of
movement, and pushed along with her skirts wrapping themselves round
her knees, and both arms to her hair. But slowly the intoxication of
movement died down, and the wind became rough and chilly. They looked
through a chink in the blind and saw that long cigars were being smoked
in the dining-room; they saw Mr. Ambrose throw himself violently against
the back of his chair, while Mr. Pepper crinkled his cheeks as though
they had been cut in wood. The ghost of a roar of laughter came out to
them, and was drowned at once in the wind. In the dry yellow-lighted