His shoes scuffed, his toes jammed into the ends of them, Teddy walked blindly over the sand, leading the straggling procession. A luminous exaltation possessed them all, shining from their faces, defying hunger and sleepiness. He tried to put it into words in his mind, in a hysterical stream of phrases.... “Companions of the night ... black wind and the freedom of motion.... Away from the earth, here in fresh-born sunlight, we are new again and shining. The true artist, the true man lies down where he happens to be, like an animal, and sleeps as he wishes....” He stumbled on a sandy hummock and felt a little dizzy.
They climbed stiffly into the car. Gin was obsessed with chatter: she talked of her hunger, her disordered clothes, her lame shoulder, in a gay high voice that had nothing to do with what she was saying. Harvey watched her sombrely and silently. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders: she tried once to twist it up but it fell again: in the wind it streamed out sideways when they started to move, and whipped back, catching Harvey on the cheek. She was beautiful, Teddy thought. He said,
“If you wouldn’t turn out to be such a ‘Saturday Evening Post’ girl, I’d paint you.”
“I will anyway,” cried Blake. “I’ll paint all of us. It will be a frontispiece to ‘Treasure Island’ and we’ll all be disgraced.”
“We are disgraced,” she cried joyfully. “Paint us, paint us.” She leaned over the side as limply as she could, imitating a corpse. “Dead, dead, dead,” she murmured. A roadster full of staring tourists passed in the other direction, and swerved as the driver turned for a last look.
“Wheeee, it’s late,” said Teddy. “When do we eat? How far are we? Where are we?”
Suddenly Gin screamed and then sat still with her fist to her open mouth.
“What’s the matter?” they all asked.
“My job! I forgot. How could I?”
“Ooo,” said Blake. “And it’s late.”