He did not want to linger. A certain hush had come to her from him. It was not yet three.... He seemed surprised to find it broad day in the street. She touched his sleeve, drawing him to the curb, away from the crowds which astonished him. Clearly something was wrong with his head.
“Bessie—before your salary begins—have you everything? Isn’t there something——?”
She smiled and hesitated. He rubbed his eyes.
“I’m so glad I thought of it,” he said, drawing forth the brown wallet.
His gift bewildered her, but she did not ask him this time what he wanted. Instead she asked:
“But where are you going?”
“Why, Bessie, I’m going home.”
PART SEVEN
THE STONE HOUSE: II
1
The hard thing was to get Honolulu behind. The first seven days at sea was like a voyage to another planet. Bellair could lose himself in the universe, between the banging of the Chinese gongs that called passengers willingly, for the most part, to meals on the British ship Suwarrow.... They had crawled out of the harbour in the dusk, a southwest wind waiting at the gate, like an eager lover for a maiden to steal forth. She was in his arms shamelessly, before the dusk closed, the voices from the land hardly yet having died away. Bellair watched their meeting in the offing. The blusterer came head on; the Suwarrow veered coquettishly and started to run, knowing him the swifter and the stronger, as all woman-things love to know. Presently he had her, and they made a [Pg 322]night of it—the moon breaking out aghast from time to time, above black and flying garments of cloud. Bellair enjoyed the game, the funnels smoking the upper decks straight forward. They were making a passage that night, in the southward lift of that lover.