ve on with the
pulse of her engines (that stopped no more than a man's heart stops) in
a course which had nothing to mark it but the spread of the furrows from
her sides, and the wake that foamed from her stern to the western verge
of the sea.

The life of the ship, like the life of the sea, was a sodden monotony,
with certain events which were part of the monotony. In the morning the
little steward's bugle called the passengers from their dreams, and half
an hour later called them to their breakfast, after such as chose had
been served with coffee by their bedroom-stewards. Then they went on
deck, where they read, or dozed in their chairs, or walked up and down,
or stood in the way of those who were walking; or played shuffleboard
and ring-toss; or smoked, and drank whiskey and aerated waters over
their cards and papers in the smoking-room; or wrote letters in the
saloon or the music-room. At eleven o'clock they spoiled their appetites
for lunch with tea or bouillon to the music of a band of second-cabin
stewards; at one, a single blast of the bugle called them to lunch,
where they glutted themselves to the torpor from which they afterwards
drowsed in their berths or chairs. They did the same things in the
afternoon that they had done in the forenoon; and at four o'clock the
deck-stewards came round with their cups and saucers, and their
plates of sandwiches, again to the music of the band. There were two
bugle-calls for dinner, and after dinner some went early to bed, and
some sat up late and had grills and toast. At twelve the lights were put
out in the saloons and the smoking-rooms.

There were various smells which stored themselves up in the
consciousness to remain lastingly relative to certain moments and
places: a whiff of whiskey and tobacco that exhaled from the door of the
smoking-room; the odor of oil and steam rising from the open skylights
over the engine-room; the scent of stale bread about the doors of the
dining-saloon.

The life was like the life at a sea-side hotel, only more monotonous.
The walking was limited; the talk was the tentative talk of people aware
that there was no refuge if they got tired of one another. The flirting
itself, such as there was of it, must be carried on in the glare of the
pervasive publicity; it must be crude and bold, or not be at all.

There seemed to be very little of it. There were not many young people
on board of saloon quality, and these were mostly girls. The yo