He had dwelt upon this now for nearly four days, until it had come to be some sort of a formless horror that it was necessary to avoid.

He could get little present enjoyment by looking forward to the new life that he was going to begin and in which his father, his art, and Turner Ravis were to be the chief influences.

The thought of this prospect did give him pleasure, but he had for so long a time fed his mind upon the more tangible and concrete enjoyments of the hour and minute that it demanded them now continually.
He sat for a long time upon the slippery leather cushions of the smoking-room trying desperately to become interested in the whist game, or gazing awestruck at the man at his elbow who was smoking black Perrique in a pipe, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out through his nose.

After a while he returned to the deck.
There it was cold and wet and a strong wind was blowing from the ocean.
Four miles to the east an endless procession of brown, bare hills filed slowly past under the fog.

The sky was a dreary brown and the leagues of shifting water a melancholy desert of gray.