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the horizon, and the two clouds of spray that she dashed aside from her path sank and softly melted away in her wake, like a streak of white daisies in some green summer-suited pasture.

There was a pause in the murmurs of polite thanksgiving, a pause of expectancy; and, turning his head lazily without moving from his place, he saw the captain escorting another performer to the piano with the pleased but anxious demeanour of an impresario introducing a new star. By his side Alice Lauder moved slowly and almost reluctantly, and it occurred to Campbell, as he looked at her, that he had never really seen the new passenger before; and, in fact, the same idea struck more than one of the little circle. She had for once discarded the time-honoured black silk, and wore her one festal Sabbath gown of white flannel, which, though badly cut and worse fitted, still fell into solid picturesque folds, and by its cream-coloured mass threw a sort of reflected brightness round her face. She had taken off her hat, and, holding it in her hand, moved with a mechanical step, almost like a blind person, her eyes fixed on the horizon with an absent expression, yet bright with a consciousness of power that lighted up her face into sudden and transitory beauty.