Emily was always much affected by the skins and shapes of men and women. The last hour had been made almost unbearable to her by the fact that Edward had red spots all over his forehead and chin. I think Edward would have killed himself had he known this. As a rule he thought of those spots whenever he found himself being looked at. But tonight he was tremulously uplifted. He really forgot that Emily could see him; he knew only that he could see Emily. If he were in a book, he thought, the spots would not be mentioned. If the book were well written the reader would now be saying, “Our hero is surely more in love than ever man was before.” He took her over to Berkeley on the Ferry. They stood on the deck in the brilliant moonlight as the boat ran out of her little cubicle under the bright eye of the Ferry Tower. The funnels and masts of other ships stuck out of similar cubicles all along the edge of the city. The ships looked like tall coy ladies in inadequate bathing tents. The moonlight was most fiercely bright. It seemed that the hills, disguised in sunlight all day, had at last unmasked. A long light cloud followed the summits of the hills so that the horizon looked like an enormous breaking wave. The air was full of lights and stars, but the water remained sombre except for a white strip spun across the bay by the moon. The noise of the water growling at the bows of the ferry so slightly occupied the silence that the screams of the trains on the Oakland side were clear to the ear. Clear to the sight were the trains themselves, little swift snakes of light pursuing one another about the bay’s edge and out on to the distant piers. CHAPTER TWO I have sent my fires to cleanse Away men’s dreams, to devour men’s Poor dreams. When I saw my fires, my proud Fires lancing A low gold cloud I followed them, dancing. For there is no threshold now. No star-withstanding beams Endure to force my pride to bow— My pride to bow its head. With a gold spear I have pinned My enemy stark To the stars and the empty wind. His light is dark. His dreams are dead. His dear And his dreams are dead. Edward had long arranged to have a party next evening. The preparations were very laborious and dull, like those for almost all parties given by shy and homeless young men in conscientious return for accumulated hospitalities. Everybody in Edward’s circle had been invited such a long time ago that no excuses had been possible. Had Edward not reminded his friends constantly of the impending event they would by now have forgotten all about it. In the morning at two o’clock Edward woke and realised with a sickening explosion of the mind that his party was certain to be an absolute and ridiculous failure. “Me, a host to twenty people? I can’t even take the responsibility of being a good guest....” He had made a great resolve. “I will invite Emily.”