She stood away from the table and flung up her head--she looked straight into the fire and swayed her body to the time of her tune. Her voice was low, so that men bent forward in order that they might hear, and the tune was almost a monotone, her voice rising and falling like the beating of the sea, with the character of her words. She sang of a Cornish pirate, Coppinger, "Cruel Coppinger," and of his deeds by land and sea, of his daring and his cleverness and his brutality, and the terror that he inspired, and at last of his pursuit by the king's cutter and his utter vanishing "no man knew where." But gradually as her song advanced Coppinger was forgotten and her theme became the sea--she spoke like one possessed, and her voice rose and fell like the wind--all Time and Place were lost. Harry felt that he was unbounded by tradition of birth or breeding, and he knew that he was absolutely as one of these others with him in the room--that he felt that call of those old gods just as they did. The girl ceased and the room was silent. Through the walls came the sound of the sea--in the fire was the crackling of the coals, and down the great chimney came a little whistle of the wind. "A mighty fine pome 'tis fur sure," said the white-bearded sailor solemnly, "and mostly wonderful true." He sighed. "They'm changed times," he said. The girl sat on the table at her father's side, watching them seriously. She flung her arms behind her head and then suddenly-- "I can dance too," she said. They pulled the table back and watched her. It was something quite simple and unaffected--not, perhaps, in any way great dancing, but having that quality, so rarely met with, of being exactly right and suited to time and place. Her arms moved in ripples like the waves of the sea--every part of her body seemed to join in the same motion, but quietly, with perfect tranquillity, without any sense of strain or effort. The golden lamps, the coloured clothes, the red-brick floor, made a background of dazzling colour, and her black hair escaped and fell in coils over her neck and shoulders. Suddenly she stopped. "There, that's all," she said, binding her hair up again with quick fingers. She walked over to the sailors and talked to them with perfect freedom and ease; at last she stayed by the handsomest of them--a dark, well-built young fellow, who put his arm round her waist and shared his drink with her. Harry, as he watched them, felt strangely that it was for him a scene of farewell--that it was for the last time that the place was to offer him such equality or that he himself would be in a position to accept it. He did not know why he had this feeling--perhaps it was the talk of the Club about the Cove, or his own certain conviction that matters at the House were rapidly approaching a crisis. Yes, his own protests were of no avail--things must move, and perhaps, after all, it were better that they should.