Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/432

 when a disaster's coming. If that's true, something ought to be going to happen to me.”

And then, in a flash, that sound that he had been half-subconsciously expecting, came—the sound of the sea. He could hear it quite distinctly, a distant, half-determined movement that seemed so vast in its roll and plunge, so sharp in the shock with which it met the shore, and yet so subdued that it might be many thousands of miles away. It was as though a vast tide were dragging back a million shells from an endless shore—the dragging hiss, the hesitating suspense in mid-air, and then the rattle of the returning wave.

As though hypnotised he closed his eyes. Yes, he was walking along the Sea Road. There was that range of rock that lay out at sea like a crouching dog. There was that white twisting circle of foam that lay about the Ragged Stone—out there by itself, the rock with the melancholy bell. Then through the plunging sea he could hear its note—the moan of some one in pain. And ever that rattle, that hiss, that suspense, that crash.

“I beg your pardon—” he had run into a lady's maid who was leading a pompous King Charles. The spaniel eyed him with hatred, the maid with distrust. He passed on—but the Sea had departed.

To chase away his gathering depression he thought that he would go in and have tea with Bobby and Alice. It was quite late when he got there, and stars were in a sky that was so delicate in colour that it seemed as though it were exhausted by the glorious day that it had had; a little sickle moon was poised above the Chelsea trees.

To his disgust he found that Percival and Millicent Galleon were having tea with their brother. Their reception of him very quickly showed him that “Mortimer Stant” had put a final end to any hopes that they might have had of his career as an artist.

“How's the book doing, Westcott?” said Percival, looking upon Peter's loose-fitting clothes, broad shoulders and square-toed shoes with evident contempt.

“Not very well thank you. Galleon.”

“Ah, well, it didn't quite come off, did it, Westcott?—not quite. Can't hit the nail every time. Now young