afternoon?"

Oh, the day, the day with its hundred phases and divisions, the dresses
that went with each phase, the lukewarm emotions and interests and
boredom and suppressed hatreds, this thing called the day, which she had
first reviewed in the open boat after the wreck of the _Gaston de
Paris_ terrified to find it torn from her--this thing had been returned
to her that morning in all its futility. It seemed to her, as she cast
it away, a horrible gaud, a thing made of tinsel, yet a thing that could
destroy the soul and blind the eyes and numb the heart.

She had never been free, she had always been the veriest slave, the
slave of things, of people, of convenances, and of circumstances.

Doctor Epinard had spoken something of the truth.

Man may not be an automaton worked by environment, all the same he is
the slave of environment, and never such a slave as when his environment
is that of high Civilisation.

For there the pure motives of the mind have ever to be regulated and
falsified, the heart crushed, the face veiled.

To break with all that falsity means shipwreck.

"Which way does the sea lie?" asked the girl. Raft turned to the left as
though the smell of the sea were leading him.

"I'm glad to be out of there," said he, "I was near smothered in that
place."

"So was I," said she, "did that man bring you your food all right?"

"Another chap brought it," said Raft, "a Dutchman."

She laughed.

"Do you know what I was thinking?" said she.

"I was thinking of the time you brought me food when I was nearly dying.
You didn't tell a Dutchman to bring it. I'd have brought you your food
myself and we would have had it together only I had to talk to those
people. Well, I've got rid of them. How would you like to live always in
a place like that hotel?"

Raft mentally reviewed the room done in blue silk, Fritz, and the rest
of it.

"I'd rather be out in the open," said Raft. "Not that I have anything to
say against it--but I'd rather be out in the open."

They walked along.

Companionship with Raft had for her one delightful thing about it, it
was companionship without restraint. In a way it was like companionship
with a dog, or a child. Like two old sailors they would hang silent,
sometimes, for a long time, not bothering to speak, content with being
together.

She had never imagined the possibility of a man and a woman of
absolutely different social position in such a relationship, never drawn
t