He re-entered Cary's room by way of the hall. By the light of the early breaking dawn, he saw something dark lying before Cary's outer door.
He stooped over it.
It was Trevelyan's boy.
BOOK ONE
THE CLAY
TAKES SHAPE
BOOK ONE
THE CLAY TAKES SHAPE
I.
The six-foot Englishman, with the military carriage and the rough tweed cap, continued to stare at the back of the girl in the brown tailor suit, leaning over the ship's rail. There was something in the attitude that recalled a child swinging on the railing of a fort's drawbridge. He could not have told exactly why. Perhaps it was because he so often recalled that picture; perhaps it was because he had always held fast to a vague hope that some day he might meet that child again.
The girl in the brown tailor suit remained motionless, her face turned toward the Liberty that was melting into an indistinct blur. The young Englishman came a little nearer. She had not been there when he had come aboard. Of that he was sure. Well, he had probably missed half of his fellow passengers while he was changing to his seafaring clothes, and there had been a couple of letters to be written to be carried back by the pilot. All that had taken time.