A Woman of Culture, Chapter XII-XIV [pp. 771-801]

i88i.] A tVoMAw OF CULTU~E. 779
one of the streets of the West End. It was close on eleven
o'clock. The violence of the storm did not seem to abate with
the advancing hours, and forward movement was such desperate
work that neither gentleman was in the humor for talking.
NIr. Juniper was, moreover, in a mood. He was displeased with
the situ~ation, with his companion for bringing him into it, with
the wretched inclinations which were strong enough to force him
from warmth and comfort and safety into the misery and actual
danger of the night. He was very superstitious and imaginative,
and every moan of the tempest struck a new terror into his
heart. Every unaccountable noise startled him. He was glad
to walk with his eyes shut and his hand on Quip's arm, and he
grumbled for mere sake of the companionship which Quip, stalking along gravely and silently as a crane, seemed disinclined to
show.
"And only for what's coming," said he, stopping with his
back to the wind, that he might breathe easily for a few minutes
before starting out again, "only that I want to see how the men
who helped to spend my money can spend their own, I wouldn't
think twice about getting back to the asylum."
"Your taste for whiskey has more to do with. your coming
than anything else," observed Quip sneeringly.
"I learned that from you," retorted the other. "But as yet I
haven't the nose for smelling it out which you have, nor your
impudence for drinking it at the expense of my neighbor. Hold
on! Don't start yet. Let us rest alongside this railing, for I
can't stand this wind~choking any longer."
"Don't forget the antidotes, Billy. Cheer up, my lad, and
forward. There is but one block more.
"Hold on, I say! I'm going to rest if I were at the very door,"
yelled Juniper sullenly. " Yoa can face the wind, for you're not
even breathing hard."
"There's a reason for it, J~iniper, as there is, I suppose, for the
existence of a great many things in this world. I haven't said
one word to your twenty in the last hour."
Juniper did not at once reply. They had braced themselves
against the railing, and, freed from the persecution of the wind,
could talk more freely and hear more distinctly. A dull roar
from the lower end of the street had struck upon Juniper's ear.
It was a solemn, steady sound, sometimes lower, sometimes higher
than the crash of the storm, and it impressed him unpleasantly.
He was silent from awe.
"What noise is that?" he asked after a pause.