They turned away, and moved in reverie towards the sea, which shimmered within sight.
On the long lamp-blurred stretch of asphalt no one moved. A mile of downcast lodging-houses, veiled in gloom, kept hopeless watch over a blank Parade; in their dim fan-lights the legend of "Apartments" looked the emblem of despair. To the right the black pier slumbered silently; to the left a lugubrious hotel, unpeopled and unlit, imparted to the view the last symbol of disaster. On a sudden, spasmodically—in the wide-spread desolation—the town band burst into the overture to "Zampa." It was the jocularity of hysteria at a funeral. Nina gave a gulp, and clutched his arm.
"Conrad," she quavered, "let me go home to-morrow, or I shall cry!"
He did not plead with her; he recognised that there was some justice in her plaint. He promised that she should go by an early train, and his kindness cheered her.
She came down to breakfast with her hat on.
She, too, had Punch and a foot-warmer, and again he doubted if they were adequate to exculpate him.
"Try to bear no malice," he begged on the platform.
"You'll dine with us as soon as you come back, won't you?" she laughed.
"Good-bye, old chap," exclaimed Ted. He had risen quite vivacious. "Mind you look me up when you're in town; let me know well ahead, and I'll manage a spare evening."
"I expect I've left a lot of things behind," said Nina brightly, bending to the window; "you might tell the servants to send them on."