When he had finished, Clara smiled in encouragement, with a secret feeling that he was making himself ridiculous.

She looked across the water, wishing he would put the thing away and stop this absurd exhibition.

But Jonah had warmed up to his work.

He was back in Cardigan Street again, when the Push marched through the streets with him in the lead, playing tunes that he had learned at the music-halls.
In five minutes Clara's uneasiness had vanished, and she was listening to the music with a dreamy languor quite foreign to her usual composure.

Her mind was filled with the fantastic splendour of the sunset; the fresh salt air had acted like a drug; and the sounds breathed into the reeds made her nerves vibrate like strings.