“Do you remember Henley’s lines,” said David, meditatively—=
```“‘The smell of ships (that earnest of romance),
```A sense of space and water, and thereby
```A lamplit bridge touching the troubled sky,
```And look, O look! a tangle of silvery gleams,
```And dusky lights, our River and all his dreams,
```His dreams of a dead past that cannot die.’”=
“No, it cannot die,” said Vestalia, slowly. “But its burial time is close at hand, none the less. Ah, the beautiful day!”
They turned and paced up the ascent, and then through obscure, deserted thoroughfares made their way at length to the open space about St. Paul’s. The clouds had parted, and the great dome loomed in immensity against a straggling light from the sky. They paused to look at it, and while they stood the fleecy mists far overhead cleared away, and the round moon’s full radiance flooded the prospect. Mosscrop gazed up at the flaring satellite, then down at his companion. A new thought sparkled in his eyes.
“And ah, the beautiful to-morrow, too!” he said, confidently. “My good child, do you conceive that the world comes to an end when the sun goes down? Am I less your friend by moonlight than I was in the day-time? Are we changed by the fact that the lamps are lit?”