ter again she
went on rather blindly through the wharves, reading it. A Japanese boat
was loading; smells of garlic and of spice and sandalwood were wafted to
her from the holds and weaved into her thoughts of Louis; a little
further along there was a crowd of stevedores clustered in the roadway
round a violent smell of whisky. She turned away, sickened by her
memories of that smell, with her father's ghost and Louis's at her side,
but uncontrollable curiosity made her press on again. A great
barrel--like the barrel at Lashnagar--had been broken by falling from
the top storey out of the clutch of a derrick; there was a pool of
blood, dreadful and bright in the roadway and men were lifting the
crushed body of a man into an ambulance; quite close to the pool of
blood was one of whisky that was running into the gutter. Two big,
bronzed, blue-shirted men were kneeling beside it, dipping their hands
in it and licking them greedily; trembling at the same time and looking
sick with the fright of sudden death. From a warehouse near by came a
heavy smell of decay--sheep skins were stored there in great, stiff
bales. She went on, feeling as though horror happened wherever she went.
But along by the sea wall it was very peaceful; only the soft lapping of
the landlocked tide against the stone, the slow gliding of ferry boats,
the lazy plash of oars and the metallic clanking in the naval dockyard
on Garden Island came to her. On a man-of-war out in the stream the
sailors were having a washing day; she could hear their cheery voices
singing and laughing as they hung vests and shirts and socks among the
rigging, threw soapy water at each other and skated about the decks on
lumps of soap.

A little further along by the wall was a great garden; she went in in a
dream; unfamiliar flowers covered unfamiliar bushes with pink and
scarlet snow; a bed of cactus looked like a nightmare of pincushions and
tumours. She sat down beside them, under a low, gloomy leaved eucalyptus
and dreamed. The champagne quality of the air, the sunlight dancing on
the blue water, the great banks of dark green trees on the opposite
shore, with prosperous, happy-looking little red houses nestling among
them brought about an effect of well-being that soft weather and
beautiful surroundings always gave her. She had, all her life, been able
to escape from unhappiness by the mere physical effect of going into the
sunshine and the wind--and then unhappiness and grief s