The men, pouring out of the smoking-room, were passing in twos and threes and finding their places in the unoccupied chairs scattered between the women on the deck. Many of them grouped themselves at the stern rail near where the band was playing, but the larger number arranged themselves along the side sea-rails and under the deck cabins opposite.
As they settled about in couples, there seemed to come over all the mighty and complete establishment of the calm, night sea. Above, the moon still shone in a clear, bright ball which, as its rays broke and bounded up again from the fluid floor below, glinted again and gleamed from the water in a thousand shining fragments.
Preston and the girl had drawn back a little out of the soft, silver light, and lay back, silently, hidden in the deep shadow of one of the great lifeboats hung over the deck in the davits. From their darkness all the rest of the ship and the other people, even those who almost touched their feet as they passed, sud-
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