From all this Helen drew her own conclusions, which were gloomy enough.  Pepper was a bore; Rachel was an unlicked girl, no doubt prolific of confidences, the very first of which would be:  “You see, I don’t get on with my father.”  Willoughby, as usual, loved his business and built his Empire, and between them all she would be considerably bored.  Being a woman of action, however, she rose, and said that for her part she was going to bed.  At the door she glanced back instinctively at Rachel, expecting that as two of the same sex they would leave the room together.  Rachel rose, looked vaguely into Helen’s face, and remarked with her slight stammer, “I’m going out to t-t-triumph in the wind.”

Mrs. Ambrose’s worst suspicions were confirmed; she went down the passage lurching from side to side, and fending off the wall now with her right arm, now with her left; at each lurch she exclaimed emphatically, “Damn!”

Chapter II

Uncomfortable as the night, with its rocking movement, and salt smells, may have been, and in one case undoubtedly was, for Mr. Pepper had insufficient clothes upon his bed, the breakfast next morning wore a kind of beauty.  The voyage had begun, and had begun happily with a soft blue sky, and a calm sea.  The sense of untapped resources, things to say as yet unsaid, made the hour significant, so that in future years the entire journey perhaps would be represented by this one scene, with the sound of sirens hooting in the river the night before, somehow mixing in.

The table was cheerful with apples and bread and eggs.  Helen handed Willoughby the butter, and as she did so cast her eye on him and reflected, “And she married you, and she was happy, I suppose.”

She went off on a familiar train of thought, leading on to all kinds of well-known reflections, from the old wonder, why Theresa had married Willoughby?

“Of course, one sees all that,” she thought, meaning that one sees that he is big and burly, and has a great booming voice, and a fist and a will of his own; “but—­” here she slipped into a fine analysis of him which is best represented by one word, “sentimental,” by which she meant that he was never simple and honest about his feelings.  For example, he seldom spoke of the dead, but kept anniversaries with singular pomp.  She suspected him of nameless atrocities with regard to his daughter, as indeed she had always suspected him of bullying his wife.  Naturally she fell to comparing her own fortunes with the fortunes of her friend, for Willoughby’s wife had been perhaps the one woman Helen called friend, and this comparison often made the staple of their talk.  Ridley was a scholar, and Willoughby was a man of business.  Ridley was bringing out the third volume of Pindar when Willoughby was launching his first ship.  They built a new factory the very year the commentary on Aristotle—­was it?—­appeared at the University Press.  “And Rachel,”