t of the British Empire, and
he asked Eltwin the first morning if he had noticed how instantly on
the Channel boat they had dropped to it and to the sour, heavy, sodden
British bread, from the spirited and airy Continental tradition of
coffee and rolls.

The major confessed that he was no great hand to notice such things, and
he said he supposed that if the line had never lost a passenger, and got
you to New York in six days it had a right to feed you as it pleased;
he surmised that if they could get their airing outside before they took
their coffee, it would give the coffee a chance to taste better; and
this was what they afterwards did. They met, well buttoned and well
mined up, on the promenade when it was yet so early that they were not
at once sure of each other in the twilight, and watched the morning
planets pale east and west before the sun rose. Sometimes there were no
paling planets and no rising sun, and a black sea, ridged with white,
tossed under a low dark sky with dim rifts.

One morning, they saw the sun rise with a serenity and majesty which it
rarely has outside of the theatre. The dawn began over that sea which
was like the rumpled canvas imitations of the sea on the stage, under
long mauve clouds bathed in solemn light. Above these, in the pale
tender sky, two silver stars hung, and the steamer's smoke drifted
across them like a thin dusky veil. To the right a bank of dun cloud
began to burn crimson, and to burn brighter till it was like a low
hill-side full of gorgeous rugosities fleeced with a dense dwarfish
growth of autumnal shrubs. The whole eastern heaven softened and flushed
through diaphanous mists; the west remained a livid mystery. The eastern
masses and flakes of cloud began to kindle keenly; but the stars shone
clearly, and then one star, till the tawny pink hid it. All the zenith
reddened, but still the sun did not show except in the color of the
brilliant clouds. At last the lurid horizon began to burn like a
flame-shot smoke, and a fiercely bright disc edge pierced its level, and
swiftly defined itself as the sun's orb.

Many thoughts went through March's mind; some of them were sad, but in
some there was a touch of hopefulness. It might have been that beauty
which consoled him for his years; somehow he felt himself, if no longer
young, a part of the young immortal frame of things. His state was
indefinable, but he longed to hint at it to his companion.

"Yes," said Eltwin, with a