Morning! And now the crowded train sweeps northward through the great cities and opens up bits of marine views. For the first time the girl sees a stately ship, with wings unfurled, "go down into the seas," vanishing upon the hazy horizon, "like some strain of sweet melody silenced and made visible," as Edward quoted from a far-away poet friend.
"And if you will watch it intently," he added, "and forget yourself you will lose sight of the ship and hear again the melody." And then came almost endless streets of villages and towns, the smoke of factories, the clamor and clangor of life massed in a small compass, a lull of the motion, hurrying crowds and the cheery, flushed face of Norton pressed to his mother's and to hers.
The first stage of the journey was over. Across the river rose, in dizzy disorder and vastness, New York.
The men clasped hands and looked each other in the eyes, Montjoy smiling, Morgan grave. It seemed to the latter that the smile of his friend meant nothing; that behind it lay anxiety, questioning. He did not waver under the look, and in a moment the hand that held his tightened again. Morgan had answered. Half the conversation of life is carried on without words. Morgan had answered, but he could not forget his friend's questioning gaze. Nor could he forget that his friend had a wife.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE SONG THE OCEAN SANG.
The stay of the party in New York was short. Norton was busy with trade that could not wait. He stole a part of a day, stuffed the pocketbooks of the ladies with gold, showed them around and then at last they looked from the deck of a "greyhound" and saw the slopes of Staten island and the highlands sink low upon the horizon.
The first night at sea! The traveler never forgets it. Scenes of the past may shine through it like ink renewed in the dimmed lines of a palimpsest through later records, but this night stands supreme as if it were the sum of all. For in this night the fatherland behind and the heart grown tender in the realization of its isolation, come back again the olden experiences. Dreams that have passed into the seas of eternity meet it and shine again. Old loves return and fold their wings, and hopes grown wrinkled with disappointment throw off dull Time's imprints and are young once more.
To the impressionable heart of the girl, the vastness and the solemnity brought strange thoughts. She stood by the rail, silenced, sad, but not with the sadness that oppresses. By her was the man who through life's hidden current had brought her all unknowing into harmony with the eternal echos rising into her consciousness.