to be back." She looked round, and went to rearrange on the sofa the cushions that they had whacked so hard to get the dust out.
Somers went to the edge of the grass to be near the sea. It was raving in long, rasping lines of hissing breakers—not very high ones, but very long. The sky hung grey, with veils of dark rain out to sea, and in the south a blackness of much rain blowing nearer in the wind. At the end of the jetty, in the mist of the sea-wind's spray, a long, heavy coal-steamer was slowly toiling to cast loose and get away. The waves were so long and the current so strong, they would hardly let her turn and get clear of the misty-black jetty.
Under the dark-grey sky the sea looked bright, but coldly bright, with its yellow-green waves and its ramparts of white foam. There were usually three white ramparts, one behind the other, of rasping surf: and sometimes four. Then the long swish and surge of the shoreward wash. The coast was quite deserted: the steep sand wet as the backwash slid away: the rocks wet with rain: the low, long black steamer still laboured in the fume of the wind, indistinctly.
Somers turned indoors, and suddenly began taking off his clothes. In a minute he was running naked in the rain which fell with lovely freshness on his skin. Ah, he felt so stuffy after that sort of emotional heat in town. Harriet in amazement saw him whitely disappearing over the edge of the low cliff-bank, and came to the edge to look.
He ran quickly over the sands, where the wind blew cold but velvety, and the raindrops fell loosely. He walked straight into the fore-wash, and fell into an advancing ripple. At least it looked a ripple, but was enough to roll him over so that he went under and got a little taste of the Pacific. Ah, the fresh cold wetness!—the fresh cold wetness! The water rushed in the back-wash and the sand melted under him, leaving him stranded like a fish. He turned again to the water. The walls of surf were some distance off, but near enough to look rather awful as they raced in high white walls shattering towards him. And above the ridge of the raving whiteness the dimness of the labouring steamer, as if it were perched on a bough.
Of course he did not go near the surf. No, the last
