"
We went on to discuss the project and some indifferent topics. It
was rapidly growing dark and cool. Looming through the
thickening dusk, somewhat diagonally across the dock from us,
was the figure of a young fellow with his head reclining on the
shoulder of a young woman. A little further off and nearer to the
water I could discern a white shirt-waist in the embrace of a dark
coat. A song made itself heard. It was "After the Ball is Over," one
of the sentimental songs of that day. "Tara-ra-boom-de-aye"
followed, a tune usually full of joyous snap and go, but now
performed in a subdued, brooding tempo, tinged with sadness. It
rang in a girlish soprano, the rest of the crowd listening silently.
By this time the gloom was so dense that the majority of us could
not see the singer, which enhanced the mystery of her melody and
the charm of her young voice. Presently other voices joined in, all
in the same meditative, somewhat doleful rhythm. Gayer strains
would have sounded sacrilegiously out of tune with the darkling
glint of the river, with the mysterious splash of its waves against
the bobbing bulkheads of the pier, with the starry enchantment of
the passing ferry-boats, with the love-enraptured solemnity of the
spring night.
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