Aloud she said, after a moment's silence, "Oh, nothing could be lovelier!"
She lay in her warm, clean white bed that night, sleeping the sound sleep of the healthy young animal which has been wet and cold and hungry, and is now dry and warmed and fed.
Outside, across the city, on his bronze pedestal, the tortured Thinker, loyal to his destiny, still strove terribly against the limitations of his ape-like forehead.
BOOK IV;
THE STRAIT PATH
CHAPTER XL
A CALL FROM HOME
It was quite dark when they arrived in the harbor at Naples; and they were too late to go through the necessary formalities of harbor entering. In company with several other in-and outward-bound steamers, the Carnatic lay to for the night. Some one pointed out a big liner which would sail for New York the next morning, lying like a huge, gaily lighted island, the blare of her band floating over the still water.
Sylvia slept little that night, missing the rolling swing of the ship, and feeling breathless in the stifling immobility of the cabin. She tossed about restlessly, dozing off at intervals and waking with a start to get up on her knees and look out through the port-hole at the lights of Naples blazing steadily in their semicircle. She tried to think several times, about her relations to Felix, to Austin—but nothing came to her mind except a series of scenes in which they had figured, scenes quite disconnected, which brought no enlightenment to her.
As she lay awake thus, staring at the ceiling, feeling in the intense silence and blackness that the fluttering of her eyelids was almost audible, her heart beating irregularly, now slow, now fast, it occurred to her that she was beginning to know something of the intensity of real life—real grown-up life. She was astonished to enjoy it so little.