The Golden Silence | Page 9

no eyes, once kind, would turn from him, or
turn on him with pity. Out there in Algiers, a town of which he had the
vaguest conception, there would be people who read the papers, of
course, and people who loved to gossip; but Stephen felt a pleasant
confidence that Nevill Caird would know how to protect him from such
people. He would not have to meet many strangers. Nevill would

arrange all that, and give him plenty to think about during his weeks of
freedom.
Algiers seemed a remote place to Stephen, who had loved life at home
too passionately to care for foreign travel. Besides, there was always a
great deal to do in England at every season of the year, and it had been
difficult to find a time convenient for getting away. Town engagements
began early in the spring, and lasted till after Cowes, when he was keen
for Scotland. Being a gregarious as well as an idle young man, he was
pleased with his own popularity, and the number of his invitations for
country-house visits. He could never accept more than half, but even so,
he hardly saw London until January; and then, if he went abroad at all,
there was only time for a few days in Paris, and a fortnight on the
Riviera, perhaps, before he found that he must get back. Just after
leaving Oxford, before his father's death, he had been to Rome, to
Berlin, and Vienna, and returned better satisfied than ever with his own
capital; but of course it was different now that the capital was
dissatisfied with him.
He had chosen the night train and it was not crowded. All the way to
Dover he had the compartment to himself, and there was no rush for the
boat. It was a night of stars and balmy airs; but after the start the wind
freshened, and Stephen walked briskly up and down the deck, shivering
slightly at first, till his blood warmed. By and by it grew so cold that
the deck emptied, save for half a dozen men with pipes that glowed
between turned-up coat collars, and one girl in a blue serge dress, with
no other cloak than the jacket that matched her frock. Stephen hardly
noticed her at first, but as men buttoned their coats or went below, and
she remained, his attention was attracted to the slim figure leaning on
the rail. Her face was turned away, looking over the sea where the
whirling stars dipped into dark waves that sprang to engulf them. Her
elbows rested on the railing, and her chin lay in the cup of her two
hands; but her hair, under a blue sailor-hat held down with a veil, hung
low in a great looped-up plait, tied with a wide black ribbon, so that
Stephen, without wasting much thought upon her, guessed that she
must be very young. It was red hair, gleaming where the light touched
it, and the wind thrashed curly tendrils out from the thick clump of the

braid, tracing bright threads in intricate, lacy lines over her shoulders,
like the network of sunlight that plays on the surface of water.
Stephen thought of that simile after he had passed the girl once or twice,
and thinking of it made him think of the girl herself. He was sure she
must be cold in her serge jacket, and wondered why she didn't go below
to the ladies' cabin. Also he wondered, even more vaguely, why her
people didn't take better care of the child: there must be some one
belonging to her on board.
At last she turned, not to look at him, but to pace back and forth as
others were pacing. She was in front of Stephen, and he saw only her
back, which seemed more girlish than ever as she walked with a light,
springing step, that might have kept time to some dainty dance-music
which only she could hear. Her short dress, of hardly more than ankle
length, flowed past her slender shape as the black, white-frothing
waves flowed past the slim prow of the boat; and there was something
individual, something distinguished in her gait and the bearing of her
head on the young throat. Stephen noticed this rather interesting
peculiarity, remarking it more definitely because of the almost mean
simplicity of the blue serge dress. It was of provincial cut, and looked
as if the wearer might have bought it ready made in some country town.
Her hat, too, was of the sort that is turned out by the thousand and sold
at a few shillings for young persons between the ages of twelve and
twenty.
By and by, when she had walked as far forward as possible, the deck
rising under her feet