At the end of one of these she came suddenly upon a waste of waters the color of a moonstone. Stella had never been abroad; but she felt as if a wall between her mind and space had broken down and shown her Venice. Drifting slowly down the broad stream were two white swans, and across the river a green bank stood beneath a row of shining towers.
They were a row of factory chimneys; but rising out of the mist, above the moonstone flood, they looked like ancient towers. Stella sat upon a wooden float; it made a luxurious seat for her opposite the drifting swans. She felt as if all her thoughts at last were free. There was no one in sight; old and dignified houses leaned toward the water-front: but for all the life that inhabited them, they might have been the ghosts of houses. Nothing stirred, but sometimes up the river a sea-gull, on level wings, with wary eyes, wandered above the watery highway, challenging the unaccustomed small spaces of the sky.
Stella wished for the first time that Julian were dead. She did not believe in a capricious or an impatient God, moved by well-timed petitions; but all her being absorbed itself into an unconscious prayer for Julian's peace.
She could not have told how long she had been there when she heard the sound of footsteps, strangely familiar footsteps, direct, regular, and swift. She looked up, to meet the grave, intent gaze of Mr. Leslie Travers.
Stella rubbed her eyes as if she had been asleep. Surely in a place of whispering silences, town clerks did not burst upon you except in dreams?
Of course Mr. Travers might live in one of these old, quiet houses, though it did not seem very likely to Stella. She thought he must live in some place where the houses looked as if they knew more what they were about, and did not brood over a deserted waterway
Seeing all their own mischance
With a glassy countenance,
like that immortal gazer, the Lady of Shalott.
Mr. Travers did not pass Stella with his usual air of cutting through space like a knife. He crossed the float gingerly, and asked firmly, but with kindness, if he might sit down.
Stella gave a helpless gesture of assent. She could not stop him, but he was inappropriate. The row of factory chimneys ceased to disguise themselves as towers; the float looked as if it knew suddenly how unsuitable it was for a winter afternoon's repose. The swans, approaching fatally near for the ideal, were very nearly black.