rapped it about. To use Damaris' favourite word, they were
very "beautiful" both in themselves and in their almost mystic affection,
these two young creatures. And just on that very account he would be glad
to get away from them, to be no longer onlooker, or--to put it
vulgarly--gooseberry, fifth wheel to the cart.

He went with them as far as the shoreward end of the up-sloping
gangway.--A tall grey-clad figure, with an equally tall blue-clad figure
on the other side of the young girl's, also tall, biscuit-coloured
one,--a dash of pink showing in her burnt-straw hat, pink too at her
throat and waist seen between the open fronts of her dust-coat.--But at
the gangway he stopped.

"Dear witch," he said, "I have some telegrams I should be glad to send
off, and another small matter of business to transact in the town, so
here, I will leave you, if you permit, in our friend's safe-keeping"--he
smiled upon Faircloth. "At the station, at five-thirty, we meet. _Au
revoir_, then."

And, without waiting for any reply, he sauntered away along the
sun-flooded quay between piled up bales of merchandize, wine barrels,
heaps of sand, heaps too of evilly smelling hides, towering cases and
crates. His shadow--clear violet upon the grey of the granite--from his
feet onwards, travelled before him as he walked. And this leading by,
this following of, his own shadow, casual accident of light and of
direction though in all common sense he must account it, troubled the
peace of the man with the blue eyes, making him feel wistful, feel past
the zenith of his allotted earthly achievement, queerly out of the
running, aged and consequently depressed.

Upon Damaris the suddenness of his exit reacted in a sensation of
constraint. Carteret had been very exquisite to her throughout this
delicate adventure, throughout these hours of restrained yet exalted
emotion. Left thus to her own resources she grew anxious, consciously
diffident. The, in a sense, abnormal element in her relation to Faircloth
darted down on her, so that she could not but remember how slight, after
all, was her actual acquaintance with him, how seldom--only thrice in
point of fact--had he and she had speech of one another.

Upon Faircloth, Carteret's withdrawal also reacted, though with different
effect. For an instant he watched the tall retreating form of this, as he
perceived, very perfect gentleman. Then he turned to Damaris, looking her
over from head to heel, in keen som