Dusk, And So On

"Happy, Cawthorne?" Amory removed his pipe to inquire with idle indulgence.

"Am I happy?" affirmed Little Cawthorne ecstatically in four tones, and went on with his song: "The daylight may do for the gay, The thoughtless, the heartless, the free, But there's something about the moon's ray That is sweeter to you and to me."

"Did you make that up?" inquired Amory with polite interest.

"I did if I want to," responded Little Cawthorne. "Everything's true out here--go on, tell everything you like. I'll believe you."

St. George came out of the dark and leaned on the rail without speaking. Sometimes he wondered if he were he at all, and he liked the doubt. He felt pleasantly as if he had been cut loose from all old conditions and were sailing between skies to some unknown planet. This was not only because of the strange waters rushing underfoot but because of the flowering and singing of something within him that made the world into which he was sailing an alien place, heavenly desirable. A week ago that day The Aloha had weighed anchor, and these seven days, in fairly fortunate weather, her white nose had been cleaving seas to traverse which had so long been her owner's dream; and yet her owner, in pleasant apostasy, had turned his back upon the whole matter of what he had been used to dream, and now ungratefully spent his time in trying to count the hours to his journey's end.