t appears among companions of a day, when the hour of
separation approaches and each one draws into himself, not to be seen
any more.

Words fell flat, like bits of ice, without finding any echo in their
fall. At each turn of the wheel, the imposing lady became more reserved
and silent. Everything had been said. They, too, were going to remain
in Salerno in order to take a carriage-trip along the gulf. They were
going to Amalfi and would pass the night on the Alpine peak of Ravello,
a medieval city where Wagner had passed the last months of his life,
before dying in Venice. Then, passing over to the Gulf of Naples, they
would rest in Sorrento and perhaps might go to the island of Capri.

Ulysses wished to say that his line of march was exactly the same, but
he was afraid of the doctor. Furthermore, their trip was to be in a
vehicle which they had already rented and they would not offer him a
seat.

Freya appeared to surmise his sadness and wished to console him.

"It is a short trip. No more than three days.... Soon we shall be in
Naples."

The farewell in Salerno was brief. The doctor was careful not to
mention their stopping-place. For her, the friendship was ending then
and there.

"It is probable that we shall run across each other again," she said
laconically. "It is only the mountains that never meet."

Her young companion was more explicit, mentioning the hotel on the
shores of S. Lucia in which she lodged.

Standing by the step of the carriage, he saw them take their departure,
just as he had seen them appear in a street of Pompeii. The doctor was
lost behind a screen of glass, talking with the coachman who had come
to meet them. Freya, before disappearing, turned to give him a faint
smile and then raised her gloved hand with a stiff forefinger,
threatening him just as though he were a mischievous and bold child.

Finding himself alone in the compartment that was carrying toward
Naples the traces and perfumes of the absent one, Ulysses felt as
downcast as though he were returning from a burial, as if he had just
lost one of the props of his life.

His appearance on board the _Mare Nostrum_ was regarded as a calamity.
He was capricious and intractable, complaining of Toni and the other
two officials because they were not hastening repairs on the vessel. In
the same breath he said it would be better not to hurry things too
much, so that the job would be better done. Even Caragol was the victim
of his