It was not long before her eyes, roving from one to another passenger, rested upon a couple across the way. Both looked jaded and distrait. They talked but little. The lady was crisp and fresh and glossy, in her blue serge suit and smart hat; her form was molded almost sumptuously—but there were soft, violet circles beneath her roaming eyes. She leaned back in her seat; her attitude had lost, in its California tendency to abandon, an imperceptible something of that erect, well-held poise that such corset-modeled, white-gloved creatures of fashion usually maintain. Clytie recognized her; it was Mrs. Page. The young man Clytie did not know. He was a dapper, immaculate, pink-cheeked person, who leaned slightly nearer his companion than custom sanctions when he spoke an occasional playful word to her. In his gestures he often touched her arm, where, for a second his gloved hand seemed to linger affectionately. Mrs. Page gave him in return a flashing, ardent smile, then her eyes wandered listlessly. Before Mrs. Page had a chance to notice her, Clytie arose and walked forward. Just outside the door she stopped upon the wind-swept deck for a moment to look about her. Above Goat Island, melting into the perfect bow of its profile, lay the crest of Tamalpais. The mountains surrounding the bay of San Francisco were wild and terrible, with naked brown slopes void of trees or grass. To the northwest they came down to the very edge of the water, tumbling precipitately, seamed with gulleys, forming the wall of the Golden Gate. Southward was smoke and haze; forward the peninsula loomed through murk. The whole aspect of the harbor was barren, chill, desolate. One felt that one was thousands of miles from civilization—in a land unique, grim, isolate, sufficient unto itself, shut off by sea and mountain from the great world. Yet it had its own strange beauty, and that charm which, once felt, endures for ever, the immortal lure of bigness, wideness, freedom of air and sky and water. Clytie stood, holding her hat against the nimble breeze for a while, gazing at a flock of gulls that sailed alongside the boat, circling and screaming, then she turned and moved to the right and walked aft. There was a young woman sitting in an angle of the seats, by the paddle-box. Her arm was resting on the rail and she was gazing down at the swirling rush of water. From her chic shepherd’s plaid frock, so cunningly trimmed with red, so perfectly moulding her svelte form, it should have been Fancy Gray, Queen of Piedra Pinta. But it was a poor, tired Majesty, whose face was filled with infinite longing, whose traitor mouth was lax, whose head, bent sidewise, seemed too heavy to be held in its whilom spirited pose. She was off her guard; she had dropped the mask she was learning so painfully to bear. [Illustration: It was a poor tired Majesty]