"Clara, Clara," Jacob named the shape in yellow gauze Timothy's sister,
Clara. The girl sat smiling and flushed. With her brother's dark eyes,
she was vaguer and softer than he was. When the laugh died down she
said: "But, mother, it was true. He said so, didn't he? Miss Eliot
agreed with us. ..."

But Miss Eliot, tall, grey-headed, was making room beside her for the
old man who had come in from the terrace. The dinner would never end,
Jacob thought, and he did not wish it to end, though the ship had sailed
from one corner of the window-frame to the other, and a light marked the
end of the pier. He saw Mrs. Durrant gaze at the light. She turned to
him.

"Did you take command, or Timothy?" she said. "Forgive me if I call you
Jacob. I've heard so much of you." Then her eyes went back to the sea.
Her eyes glazed as she looked at the view.

"A little village once," she said, "and now grown. ..." She rose, taking
her napkin with her, and stood by the window.

"Did you quarrel with Timothy?" Clara asked shyly. "I should have."

Mrs. Durrant came back from the window.

"It gets later and later," she said, sitting upright, and looking down
the table. "You ought to be ashamed--all of you. Mr. Clutterbuck, you
ought to be ashamed." She raised her voice, for Mr. Clutterbuck was
deaf.

"We ARE ashamed," said a girl. But the old man with the beard went on