Gideon, meanwhile, stood behind the door, afraid to move, afraid to
breathe, afraid to think of what must follow, racked by confinement and
borne to the ground with tedium. This particular phase, he felt with
gratitude, could not last for ever; whatever impended (even the gallows,
he bitterly and perhaps erroneously reflected) could not fail to be
a relief. To calculate cubes occurred to him as an ingenious and even
profitable refuge from distressing thoughts, and he threw his manhood
into that dreary exercise.
Thus, then, were these two young persons occupied--Gideon attacking the
perfect number with resolution; Julia vigorously stippling incongruous
colours on her block, when Providence dispatched into these waters a
steam-launch asthmatically panting up the Thames. All along the banks
the water swelled and fell, and the reeds rustled. The houseboat itself,
that ancient stationary creature, became suddenly imbued with life, and
rolled briskly at her moorings, like a sea-going ship when she begins
to smell the harbour bar. The wash had nearly died away, and the quick
panting of the launch sounded already faint and far off, when Gideon was
startled by a cry from Julia.
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