This she said not parrotwise, but with a simple coquettishness that was all her own.
On the way to the steamer a few moments later, Ernest asked, half-reproachfully: "Jack--and you really enjoyed this conversation?"
"We're twenty, Ernest. And then, you see, it's like a course in sociology. Susie--"
"They may not be pillars of society; still, they're human."
"Yes," said Ernest, "that is the most horrible part of it."
Swift and sure the prow of the night-boat parted the silvery foam.
The smell of young flesh. Peals of laughter. A breathless pianola. The tripping of dancing-feet. Voices husked with drink and voices soft with love. The shrill accents of vulgarity. Hustling waiters. Shop-girls. Bourgeois couples. Tired families of four and upward. Sleeping children. A boy selling candy. The crying of babies.
The two friends were sitting on the upper deck, muffled in their long rain-coats.
In the distance the Empire City rose radiant from the mist.
"Say, Ernest, you should spout some poetry as of old. Are your lips stricken mute, or are you still thinking of Coney Island?"
"Oh, no, the swift wind has taken it away. I am clean, I am pure. Life has passed me. It has kissed me, but it has left no trace."
He looked upon the face of his friend. Their hands met. They felt, with keen enjoyment, the beauty of the night, of their friendship, and of the city beyond.
Then Ernest's lips moved softly, musically, twitching with a strange ascetic passion that trembled in his voice as he began:
_"Huge steel-ribbed monsters rise into the air Her Babylonian towers, while on high, Like gilt-scaled serpents, glide the swift trains by, Or, underfoot, creep to their secret lair. A thousand lights are jewels in her hair, The sea her girdle, and her crown the sky; Her life-blood throbs, the fevered pulses fly. Immense, defiant, breathless she stands there.
"And ever listens in the ceaseless din, Waiting for him, her lover, who shall come, Whose singing lips shall boldly claim their own, And render sonant what in her was dumb, The splendour, and the madness, and the sin, Her dreams in iron and her thoughts of stone."_
He paused. The boat glided on. For a long time neither spoke a word.
After a while Jack broke the silence: "And are you dreaming of becoming the lyric mouth of the city, of giving utterance to all its yearnings, its 'dreams in iron and its thoughts of stone'?"