He ran his fingers along the swaying rope, sticky from the innumerable human hands that had clutched it. His mind seemed to hover above the form of Gerda and above the form of his mother, as if it had been a floating mist gathered about two sundered headlands. That familiar grey head, with those mocking brown eyes, and this other, this new strange head, with its sea-grey gaze and its wild, pursed-up, whistling mouth⁠—what would happen when he brought them together?

It would mean he would have to leave his mother. That’s what it would mean. Where was Gerda now, in this confused medley? She must be somewhere about; and perhaps Christie, too!

“You won’t care if I go off to look for my mother, Sir?” he found himself saying. And the words quite startled him, as if he had spoken in his sleep; for he had made up his mind that he would never speak of his private affairs to this egoistic gentleman.