"which shamefully approves of the shininess and the hot water and the electric-lights and the telephones and all. In spirit—yes, I would rather have the Gloria."
"It's the same sea, isn't it?" Jane mused.
"Yes, the same," Mr. Bolliver agreed. "The waves were bigger for the Gloria, but no bluer."
"But China'll be different."
"Yes, China will be different—yet it's always the same underneath, just below the Western skin that stretches in tight little patches here and there across the surface. But it will be changed again since I was out last, thirteen years ago. This republic—young China feeling her way."
He was talking more to himself than to Jane, watching the dipping funnels of the Kyoto Maru against the pale sky. He roused himself and sat up straight in his deck-chair.
"Well, we're making good time—good time, Jane," he said. "But who cares, nowadays, how soon or late we reach the other side of the world?" he added. "We're not record breaking." He seemed to be following his own thought, sometimes in silence; his words were spoken in little detached groups.
