“I almost bowed down to myself in the cheval glass, I looked so tremendous fine; and if I did that--what will you do?”
“Many a man worships himself whom others don’t think much of.”
“There you are at me again. Fancy--Kate--ducks”--
“And green peas?”
“No--bottle-green. Ducks is what I am going to wear, with straps under my boots--lily-white, and a yellow nankeen waistcoat, and a bottle-green coat with brass buttons,--all here in this parcel,--and the hat. My honour! I never was so fine before. Four guineas--with the hat.”
“Do you call this ‘talking sensible’?” asked Kate.
Again they subsided into silence. It was hard, in the piercing wind, in the darkness, to keep up an interest in any topic.
The cold cut like a razor. The wind moaned over the bulwarks of the ferry-boat. The mud exhaled a dead and unpleasant odour. Gulls fluttered near and screamed. The clouds overhead parted, and for a while exposed tracts of sky, thick strewn with stars that glittered frostily.
Presently the young man said, “Hang it! you will catch cold. Lie in the bottom of the boat, and I will throw my coat over you.”
“But you will yourself be chilled.”