More and more often, when he first wakened
in the morning or when he stepped into a warm
place after being chilled on the deck,
he felt a sudden painful delight at being
nearer another shore. Sometimes when he
was most despondent, when he thought himself
worn out with this struggle, in a flash he
was free of it and leaped into an overwhelming
consciousness of himself. On the instant
he felt that marvelous return of the
impetuousness, the intense excitement,
the increasing expectancy of youth.
CHAPTER VI
The last two days of the voyage Bartley
found almost intolerable. The stop at
Queenstown, the tedious passage up the Mersey,
were things that he noted dimly through his
growing impatience. He had planned to stop
in Liverpool; but, instead, he took the boat
train for London.
Emerging at Euston at half-past three
o'clock in the afternoon, Alexander had his
luggage sent to the Savoy and drove at once
to Bedford Square. When Marie met him at
the door, even her strong sense of the
proprieties could not restrain her surprise
and delight. She blushed and smiled and fumbled
his card in her confusion before she ran
upstairs. Alexander paced up and down the
hallway, buttoning and unbuttoning his overcoat,
until she returned and took him up to Hilda's
living-room. The room was empty when he entered.
A coal fire was crackling in the grate and
the lamps were lit, for it was already
beginning to grow dark outside.
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