Away over the level sea, spread out like a blue sheet, vast and sheeny and shot with flame and gold, an inky cloud was visible against the rosy sky in the quarter to which he pointed, and below it they could make out the hull of the steamer, which looked tiny at such a distance. And to southward other wreaths of smoke, numbers of them, could be seen, all converging towards the Havre pier, now scarcely visible as a white streak with the lighthouse, upright, like a horn, at the end of it.
Roland asked: “Is not the Normandie due to-day?” And Jean replied:
“Yes, to-day.”
“Give me my glass. I fancy I see her out there.”
The father pulled out the copper tube, adjusted it to his eye, sought the speck, and then, delighted to have seen it, exclaimed:
“Yes, yes, there she is. I know her two funnels. Would you like to look, Mme. Rosémilly?”
She took the telescope and directed it towards the Atlantic horizon, without being able, however, to find the vessel, for she could distinguish nothing—nothing but blue, with a coloured halo round it, a circular rainbow—and then all manner of queer things, winking eclipses which made her feel sick.
She said as she returned the glass:
“I never could see with that thing. It used to put my husband in quite a rage; he would stand for hours at the windows watching the ships pass.”
Old Roland, much put out, retorted: