Half her mind was far away, labouring to construe some hideous dream
of the past; half was in the present, cringing before some sickening
reality. She remained so for perhaps ten seconds, and then--plucky
girl that she was--she mastered herself, looked deliberately round
and up with a circular glance, strangely in the manner of Davies
himself, and spoke. How late it was, she must be going--her boat was
not safe. At the same time she rose to go, or rather slid herself
along the sofa, for rising was impossible. We sat like mannerless
louts, in blank amazement. Davies at the outset had said, 'What's the
matter?' in plain English, and then relapsed into stupefaction. I
recovered myself the first, and protested in some awkward fashion
about the cocoa, the time, the absence of fog. In trying to answer,
her self-possession broke down, poor child, and her retreat became a
blind flight, like that of a wounded animal, while every sordid
circumstance seemed to accentuate her panic.

She tilted the corner of the table in leaving the sofa and spilt
cocoa over her skirt; she knocked her head with painful force against
the sharp lintel of the doorway, and stumbled on the steps of the
ladder. I was close behind, but when I reached the deck she was
already on the counter hauling up the dinghy. She had even jumped in
and laid hands on the sculls before any check came in her precipitate
movements. Now there occurred to her the patent fact that the dinghy
was ours, and that someone must accompany her to bring it back.

'Davies will row you over,' I said.

'Oh no, thank you,' she stammered. 'If you will be so kind, Herr
Carruthers. It is your turn. No, I mean, I want--'