Captain Whalley, stepping out carelessly, assented as if in a dream.

"She was pretty."

The procession of carriages was breaking up.

One after another they left the file to go off at a trot, animating the
vast avenue with their scattered life and movement; but soon the aspect
of dignified solitude returned and took possession of the straight wide
road. A syce in white stood at the head of a Burmah pony harnessed to a
varnished two-wheel cart; and the whole thing waiting by the curb seemed
no bigger than a child's toy forgotten under the soaring trees. Captain
Eliott waddled up to it and made as if to clamber in, but refrained;
and keeping one hand resting easily on the shaft, he changed the
conversation from his pension, his daughters, and his poverty back again
to the only other topic in the world--the Marine Office, the men and the
ships of the port.

He proceeded to give instances of what was expected of him; and his
thick voice drowsed in the still air like the obstinate droning of an
enormous bumble-bee. Captain Whalley did not know what was the force or
the weakness that prevented him from saying good-night and walking away.
It was as though he had been too tired to make the effort. How queer.
More queer than any of Ned's instances. Or was it that overpowering
sense of idleness alone that made him stand there and listen to these
stories. Nothing very real had ever troubled Ned Eliott; and gradually
he seemed to detect deep in, as if wrapped up in the gross wheezy
rumble, something of the clear hearty voice of the young captain of the
Ringdove. He wondered if he too had changed to the same extent; and it
seemed to him that the voice of his old chum had not changed so very