The Girl on the Boat - Penn State University

THE GIRL ON
THE BOAT
CHAPTER I
A Disturbing Morning
THROUGH THE CURTAINED WINDOWS of the furnished flat
which Mrs. Horace Hignett had rented for her stay in
New York, rays of golden sunlight peeped in like the
foremost spies of some advancing army. It was a fine
summer morning. <strong>The</strong> hands of the Dutch clock in the
hall pointed to thirteen minutes past nine; those of the
P. G. Wodehouse
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ormolu clock in the sitting-room to eleven minutes past
ten; those of the carriage clock on the bookshelf to
fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was exactly
eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by
moving her head on the pillow, opening her eyes, and
sitting up in bed. She always woke at eight precisely.
Was this Mrs. Hignett the Mrs. Hignett, the worldfamous
writer on <strong>The</strong>osophy, the author of “<strong>The</strong>
Spreading Light,” “What of the Morrow,” and all the
rest of that well-known series? I’m glad you asked me.
Yes, she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing
tour.
About this time there was a good deal of suffering in
the United States, for nearly every boat that arrived from
England was bringing a fresh swarm of British lecturers
to the country. Novelists, poets, scientists, philosophers,
and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct seemed to
affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of those
great race movements of the Middle Ages. Men and
women of widely differing views on religion, art, politics,
and almost every other subject; on this one point