“So you were awake all the time!” Martin laughed. “I thought as much.”
“Then why did you blow so hard?” asked Deane. “And why did you sigh once?”
“Come on,” said Martin, pulling her to her feet. “The sky’s beginning to change.” The sunrise was bleak, desolate and forbidding. “It just came out of the sea by way of Newfoundland,” he added. “Everything is cold in that region—even the sun. Do you see those clouds streaking over the horizon? That’s the point where all winds leave for a short visit with Mother Carey.” Martin sniffed the air. “I thought so. Don’t laugh, Deane, but I can smell icebergs.”
“What do they smell like?” Deane asked curiously.
“Some sailors say the bergs smell like wet sea moss; others say it’s like a pocket of cold salt. But to me they have no positive odor. It’s more like a taste. It’s like kissing an ammoniated mirror.”
“That’s strange,” said Deane, looking at him queerly.
The wind outside was raging and whistling through the radio antennas as through the rigging of a ship.
Deane made fresh coffee. As Martin was finishing his cup, she asked him gravely, “Martin, how are you going to live? What will you do?”
He raised his head.
“I shouldn’t worry about that, Deane; at least, not now. I know a typographer who, I think, will give me a job. It will probably be part time, but that’s all the better, for I have some other work I’d like to do.”