Outlines were lost.
Only the masses remained, and these soon began to blend into one
another. The sky, and land, and the city's huddled roofs were
one. Only the sheen of dull gold remained, piercing the single
vast mass of purple like the blade of a golden sword.
"There's a ship!" said Blix in a low tone.
A four-master was dropping quietly through the Golden Gate,
swimming on that sheen of gold, a mere shadow, specked with lights
red and green. In a few moments her bows were shut from sight by
the old fort at the Gate. Then her red light vanished, then the
mainmast. She was gone. By midnight she would be out of sight of
land, rolling on the swell of the lonely ocean under the moon's
white eye.
Condy and Blix sat quiet and without speech, not caring to break
the charm of the evening. For quite five minutes they sat thus,
watching the stars light one by one, and the immense gray night
settle and broaden and widen from mountain-top to horizon. They
did not feel the necessity of making conversation. There was no
constraint in their silence now.
Gently, and a little at a time, Condy turned his head and looked
at Blix. There was just light enough to see. She was leaning
back in her chair, her hands fallen into her lap, her head back
and a little to one side. As usual, she was in black; but now it
was some sort of dinner-gown that left her arms and neck bare.
The line of the chin and the throat and the sweet round curve of
the shoulder had in it something indescribable--something that was
related to music, and that eluded speech.
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