voice
of destiny the name of him to whom the telegram was addressed. And then
another companion would relate in intricate detail a recent excursion
into Yucatan, speaking negligently--as though it were a trifle--of the
extraordinary beauty of the women of Yucatan, and in the end making
quite plain his conviction that no other women were as beautiful as the
women of Yucatan. And then the inevitable Mona Lisa would get onto the
carpet, and one heard, apropos, of the theft of Adam mantelpieces from
Russell Square, and of superb masterpieces of paint rotting with damp in
neglected Venetian churches, and so on and so on, until one had the
melancholy illusion that the whole art world was going or gone to
destruction. But this subject did not really hold us, for the reason
that, beneath a blase exterior, we were all secretly preoccupied by the
beauty of the women of Yucatan and wondering whether we should ever get
to Yucatan.... And then, looking by accident away, I saw the dim,
provocative faces of girls in white jerseys and woolen caps peering from
without through the dark double windows of the lounge. And I was glad
when somebody suggested that it was time to take a turn. And outside, in
the strong wind, abaft the four funnels of the _Lusitania_, a star
seemed to be dancing capriciously around and about the masthead light.
And it was difficult to believe that the masthead and its light, and not
the star, were dancing.

From the lofty promenade deck the Atlantic wave is a little enough
thing, so far down beneath you that you can scarcely even sniff its
salty tang. But when the elevator-boy--always waiting for me--had
lowered me through five floors, I stood on tiptoe and gazed through the
thick glass of a porthole there; and the flying Atlantic wave,
theatrically moonlit now, was very near. Suddenly something jumped up
and hit the glass of the port-hole a fearful, crashing blow that made me
draw away my face in alarm; and the solid ground on which I stood
vibrated for an instant. It was the Atlantic wave, caressing. Anybody on
the other side of this thin, nicely painted steel plate (I thought)
would be in a rather hopeless situation. I turned away, half shivering,
from the menace. All was calm and warm and reassuring within the
ship.... In the withdrawn privacy of my berth, with the curtains closed
over the door and Murray Gilchrist's new novel in my hand and a poised
electric lamp over my head, I looked about as I lay, and