o learn it. And if they haven't learnt quite all about it yet, well,
that's only a question of time. They've got the genius of it all right.
That's what I look up to in them. And,' she added, since the Crevequers
were being so thoroughly thought out, 'they have another thing--the best
thing they've got, the thing that will in the end matter, however much
everything else fails--they have each other.'

At that Warren's face took a greater bitterness.

'So I was given to understand,' he said. 'I was told that they, being so
much the same sort, wanted no other companionship. The combination of
either with anyone else, it seemed, would not work--would be a
disastrous fiasco, in fact.'

Prudence acknowledged his right to his bitterness, the hurt being still
so new and sore, his anger with himself going so deep.

But she said, after a moment, pleading, 'Don't grudge them that. For, do
you see, it's about all they've got left,' and so ended, with wet eyes.

CHAPTER XIII

PINE-BARK BOATS

'I thenke forto touche also
The world which neweth every dai,
So as I can, so as I mai.'

JOHN GOWER.

'Earth loves her young: a preference manifest.'

GEORGE MEREDITH.

A dozen or so of the Crevequers' friends came down to the harbour to see
them off to Santa Caterina. The Crevequers leaned over the rail of the
crowded launch, which was bearing them out to the _Koenig Albrecht_, and
waved their hands and stammered good-bye to every one. Tommy was very
weak and wan, and carried one arm in a sling; he had been out of
hospital for just a week. That week they had spent in selling most of
their effects, wringing out of their various debtors, with much
exertion, some of the money owed them, and raising in the end quite a
creditable sum, with which they paid their extensive debts and booked
their passage by sea, and finally, having a little over, asked about a
dozen of their most intimate friends to a supper-party at the Trattoria
Pallino, on the Vomero. There, last night, they had said good-bye.

Last night had been full of regrets--the sadness of parting, the pathos
of a merry company broken--a pathos hidden in jests, yet oppressive,
nevertheless, in the blue May twilight. They had sat beneath the hanging
purple veil of the wistaria, and the sweetness of the May roses had
mingled with the blue fragrance of the Tuscan cigars to which Tommy had
recklessly risen, and through the sweetness and the fragranc