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As they passed beneath the glare of an arc-light before a cafe at the side of the public square, a diner sitting at a table upon the walk spied the tall figure and the bearded face of him who rode a few feet in advance of his companion. Leaping to his feet the man waved his napkin above his head. "Long live the king!" he cried. "God save Leopold of Lutha!"
She slipped into the flux of the aisle, and the tide swallowed her and carried her out into the bigger tide of the street and the swifter tide of the city a flower on the current, her blush withered under the arc-light substitution for sunlight, the petals of her youth thrown to the muddy corners of the city streets.
It had been Charlotte's express command that nobody should go to the station to meet the returning travellers, but that everybody should be in the little brick house to welcome them when they should drive up. "Here they are! Here they are!" shouted Just, from behind a window curtain, where he had been keeping close watch on the circle of radiance from the nearest arc-light.
At the other extreme, among measured stars, is one that moves two hundred miles a second; yet even this "flying star," as seen from the earth, seems to change its place by only about three and a half lunar diameters in a thousand years. In brightness, some stars yield to the sun, while others surpass him as the arc-light surpasses a candle.
The pace seemed slow to him, for he had suddenly determined what he would do. He had thought of a plan to expiate his follies of the night. At last, almost directly beneath an arc-light along the highway, he saw, dimly, the spot where the stone was being quarried, and, as he recognized it, he laughed aloud with a sort of desperate joy, because of the plunge he intended to take.
Claude went back to the waiting room, lay down and fell asleep with the glare of an arc-light shining full in his face. He was called at four in the morning and told where to report to headquarters. Captain Maxey, stationed at a desk on one of the landings, explained to his lieutenants that their company was to sail at eight o'clock on the Anchises.
They stared at him. His face was well lighted by the arc-light under the arch of the door. "I am not a labor-leader, nor a walking delegate, nor a politician, nor an anarchist. You men go home and unscrew the faucets in your kitchens, take a good sniff, and pull the slime out of the valve.
They spied the place Florence and Sidwell had left vacant, and leisurely made their way to it. A waiter appeared, a coin changed hands, an order was given. The man drew out a cigarette case that flashed in colors from the nearby arc-light. Smilingly the woman held a match, and a moment later wreath after wreath of curling blue smoke floated above them into the night.
There was a smugly clipped box-tree on either side of the carriage entrance, the leaves like cheap green lacquer in the glare of the arc-light, which brought out all the artificiality of the gray-and-black cinder drive. He felt that five pilgrimages to even the best of box-trees were enough. It would be perfectly unreasonable for a free man to come here to stare at box-trees a sixth time.
Here and there where shades were drawn the grotesque shadow of a fir-tree stood against the window; silhouettes moved past. Picket fences marched crookedly along. At each intersection of streets a white arc-light dangled, hissing and spreading its radiance to the very stoops of adjoining houses.
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