Steve was in the boat close against the creek's bank, waiting to row Majendie to the yacht. He touched his cap to Majendie as they appeared on the bank, but he did not look at Maggie when her gentle voice called good-morning.
Steve's face was close-mouthed and hard set.
She put her hands on Majendie's shoulders and kissed him. Her cheek against his face was pure and cold, wet with the rain. Steve did not look at them. He never looked at them when they were together.
Majendie dropped into the boat. Steve pushed off from the bank. Maggie stood there watching them go. She stood till the boat reached the creek's mouth, and Majendie turned, and raised his cap to her; stood till the white sail moved slowly up the river and disappeared, rounding the spit of land.
Majendie, as he paced the deck and talked to his men of wind and weather, turned casually, on his heel, to look at her where she stood alone in the level immensity of the land. The world looked empty all around her.
And he was touched with a sudden poignant realisation of her life; its sadness, its incompleteness, its isolation.
That was what he had brought her to.
CHAPTER XXIX
The rain cleared off, the mist lifted, and at nine o'clock it was a fine day for Peggy's birthday. Even Scale, where it stretched its flat avenues into the country, showed golden in the warm and brilliant air.