hear a hundred people breathing deeply, and however wakeful and restless
it would have been hard to escape sleep in the middle of so much sleep.
Looking out of the windows, there was only darkness to be seen. All over
the shadowed half of the world people lay prone, and a few flickering
lights in empty streets marked the places where their cities were
built. Red and yellow omnibuses were crowding each other in Piccadilly;
sumptuous women were rocking at a standstill; but here in the darkness
an owl flitted from tree to tree, and when the breeze lifted the
branches the moon flashed as if it were a torch. Until all people should
awake again the houseless animals were abroad, the tigers and the stags,
and the elephants coming down in the darkness to drink at pools. The
wind at night blowing over the hills and woods was purer and fresher
than the wind by day, and the earth, robbed of detail, more mysterious
than the earth coloured and divided by roads and fields. For six hours
this profound beauty existed, and then as the east grew whiter and
whiter the ground swam to the surface, the roads were revealed, the
smoke rose and the people stirred, and the sun shone upon the windows
of the hotel at Santa Marina until they were uncurtained, and the gong
blaring all through the house gave notice of breakfast.

Directly breakfast was over, the ladies as usual circled vaguely,
picking up papers and putting them down again, about the hall.

"And what are you going to do to-day?" asked Mrs. Elliot drifting up
against Miss Warrington.

Mrs. Elliot, the wife of Hughling the Oxford Don, was a short woman,
whose expression was habitually plaintive. Her eyes moved from thing to
thing as though they never found anything sufficiently pleasant to rest
upon for any length of time.

"I'm going to try to get Aunt Emma out into the town," said Susan.
"She's not seen a thing yet."

"I call it so spirited of her at her age," said Mrs. Elliot, "coming all
this way from her own fireside."

"Yes, we always tell her she'll die on board ship," Susan replied. "She
was born on one," she added.

"In the old days," said Mrs. Elliot, "a great many people were. I always
pity the poor women so! We've got a lot to complain of!" She shook her
head. Her eyes wandered about the table, and she remarked irrelevantly,
"The poor little Queen of Holland! Newspaper reporters practically, one
may say, at her bedroom door!"

"Were you talking of the Queen of Ho