The Voyage Out

clerks will have to make flying leaps into the mud; young lady typists will have to fidget behind you. In the streets of London where beauty goes un

hantment had put both man and woman beyond the reach of malice and unpopularity. In his guess one might guess from the moving lips that it was thought; and in hers from the eyes fixed stonily straight in front of her at a level above the eyes of most that it was sorrow. It was only by scorning all she met that she kept herself from tears, and the friction of people brushing past her was evidently painful. After watching the traffic on the Embankment for a minute or two with a stoical gaze she twitched her husband's sleeve, and they

er for a cruise. With their sharp eye for eccentricity, they were inclined to think Mr. Ambrose awful; but the quickest witted cried "Bluebeard!" as he passed. In case they shoul

casions, or made some sentence, they pass on. Sometimes the flats and churches and hotels of Westminster are like the outlines of Constantinople in a mist; sometimes the river is an opulent purple, sometimes mud-coloured, sometimes sparkling blue like the sea. It is always worth while to look down and see what is happening. But this lady looked n

rsena o

ine Gods

as if the speaker had

reat House

ffer wron

arity. It was this figure that her husband saw when, having reached the polished Sphinx, having entangled himself with a man selling picture postcards, he turned; the stanza instantly stoppe

the other bank. She saw also the arches of Waterloo Bridge and the carts moving across them, like the line of animals

her husband having hailed a cab

r her, and getting a soothing reply. As for the mass of streets, squares, and public buildings which parted them, she only felt at this moment how little London had done to make her love it, although thirty of her forty years had been spent in a street. She knew how to read the people who were passing her; there were the rich who were running to and from each oth

ld lovers, sheltered behind one cloak, seemed to her sordid, past their passion; the flower women, a contented company, whose talk is always worth hearing, were sodden hags; the red, yellow, and blue flowers, whose h

e drive? Shall w

peak sharply; by this

things, as though the West End, with its electric lamps, its vast plate-glass windows all shining yellow, its carefully-finished houses, and tiny live figures trotting on the pavement, or bowled along on wheels in

Ambrose understood that after all it is the ordinary thing to be poor, and that London is the city of innumerable poor people. Startled by this discovery and seeing he

is!" her husband groa

the poor, and the rain, her mind was

ships would sail for Scotland, Mrs. Ambrose did her best to find information. From a world exclusively occupied in feeding waggons with sacks, half obliterated too in a fine yellow fog, they got neither help nor attention. It seemed a miracle when an old man approached, guessed their condition, and proposed to row them out to their ship in the

the current. The open rowing-boat in which they sat bobbed and curtseyed across the line of traffic. In mid-stream the old man stayed his hands upon the oars, and as the water rushed past them, rema

en regarded him, who was putting water between her and her children. Mournfully she gazed at the ship

he lines of the rigging, the masts and the dark

s all the world over flew that flag the day they sailed. In the minds of both the passengers the blue flag appeared a sinister

ally, as her father's daughter she must be in some sort prepared to entertain them. She looked forward to seeing them as civilised people generally look forward to the first sight of civilised people, as though they were of the nature of an

hese stairs head foremost," to which a

s romantic and beautiful; not perhaps sympathetic, for her eyes looked straight and considered what they saw. Her face

d'you do," she sa

kissed. His niece instinctively liked his thin angular body, and t

usband and wife then sat down on one side of

explained. "He is very busy with t

a gale on one side of them had slipped in. No

id, erecting the

ow and seductive, though she spoke absently enough, the

eplied. "To some extent it depends on the weathe

e of it, at any

rule-no," sa

e Ridley?"

e's not like her mother." Helen was just too late in thumping her tumbler on the t

a crinkled lip towards her, and began pulling out the tight little chrysanthemu

was a

't you, Ambrose?" asked M

on of Pe

d," said

unt accident, you remember? A queer card. Married a young woman out of

sinister conciseness. "He left a com

lly great abilit

n still," went on Mr. Pepper, "which is s

out the planets, wasn'

no doubt of it," said Mr

light outside swerved. At the same time an

ff," sai

n it sank; then another came, more perceptible. Lights slid right a

. The chuckling and hissing of water could be plainly heard, and the ship heaved so that th

you still keep up wit

eet annually. This year he has had the misfortune

ful," Ridl

eeps house for him, I believe, but i

ed sagely as they c

k, wasn't there?

e a book," said Mr. Pepper with such fier

aid Mr. Pepper with considerable acidity. "That's what comes of putting thing

y with a melancholy sigh. "I have a

wasted," continued Mr. pepper. "He ha

ape," said Ridley. "Our friend M

said, "he has produced two volumes and a half annually, which, allowing

ng of him has been pretty w

. "You know the Bruce collection?

Ridley significantly. "For a

's Row, for example?

ly," sai

t, could think-about the education of children, about the use of fog sirens in an opera-without betraying herself. Only

eft, vaguely to the surprise of the gentlemen, who had eit

k into his chair again. Glancing back, at the doorway, they saw Mr. Pepper as though h

the lights of the long streets, lights that indicated huge squares of domestic comfort, lights that hung high in air. No darkness would ever settle upon those lamps, as no darkness had settled upon them for hundreds of years. It seemed dreadful that the town should blaze

. . . How beautiful!" she added a moment later. Very little was visible-a few masts, a shad

movement died down, and the wind became rough and chilly. They looked through a chink in the blind and saw that long cigars were being smoked in the dining-room; they saw Mr. Ambrose throw himself violently against the back of his chair, while Mr. Pepper crinkled his cheeks

n, smiling at the sight. "Now, i

opened

in the southern seas, was quaint rather than ugly. Twisted shells with red lips like unicorn's horns ornamented the mantelpiece, which was draped by a pall of purple plush from which depended a certain number of balls. Two windows opened on to the deck, and the light beating through them when the ship was roasted on the Amazons had turned the prints on the opposite wall to

Pepper's," Rachel started nervously, for the situation w

ke him for grante

lighting on a fossilised fish

e too severe,"

to qualify what she had

told Helen that he always called on Sundays when they were at home; he knew about a great many things-about mathematics, history, Greek, zoology, economics, and the Icelandic Sagas.

sea, or to write upon the probable course of

"Little pamphlets. Little yellow books."

love?" asked Helen, w

expectedly

el declared, dropping the fish. But when questi

sk him," s

she continued. "Do you remember-the piano, the room

hrough the floor, but at their age one wouldn'

stated. "She is afraid that you will spoil yo

e forearm-and then

quite like that," r

he wouldn't," said

mpetent for her years. Mrs. Ambrose, who had been speaking much at random, now reflected that she certainly did not look forward to the intimacy of three or four weeks on board ship which was threatened. Women of her own age usually boring her, she supposed that girls would be worse. She glanced at Rachel again. Yes! how c

Helen's brother-in-law. As a great deal of flesh would have been needed to make a fat man of him, his frame being so large, he was not fat; his face was a large framework too, looking, by th

that you have come," h

n obedience to he

nour to have charge of him. Pepper'll have some one to contradict him-whi

und Rachel's shoulder, thus making them come

e does us cre

," said

t you now." They sat down side by side on the little sofa. "Did you leave the children well? They'll be ready fo

d her girl like Ridley. As for brains, they were quick brats, she thought, and modestly she ventured on a little story about her son,-how left alone for a minute he

young rascal that these

x? I don't thi

d-fashione

loughby; Rache

on to speak of arrangements that could be made for Ridley's comfort-a table placed where he couldn't help looking at the sea, far from boilers, at the same time sheltered from the view of people passing. Unless

usly intending to do much more than she asked of him. B

mp hand as he came in, as though the meeting were m

iness, tempered by respect. Fo

ng," Helen remarked. "Mr. Pepper

ries were good," said

udge, Ridley?" en

left," said Ridley, spea

rk, "But didn't they improve after we'd gone?" was unfortunate, for her hu

pinster who detects a mouse, as the draught struck at his ankles. Drawn up there, sucking at his cigar, with his arms encircling his knees, he looked like the image of Buddha, and from this elevation began a discourse, addressed to nobody, for nobody had called for

by, "the monsters of the e

d to sigh, "Poo

ess, blind monsters lying curled on the ridges of sand at the bottom of the sea, which would explode if you brought them to the surface, their sides bursting asunder and

lloughby, as usual, loved his business and built his Empire, and between them all she would be considerably bored. Being a woman of action, however, she rose, and said that for her part she was going to bed. At the door she glanced

lurching from side to side, and fending off the wall now with her right