Morning fog rolled in from the sea and covered the city in heavy swirling billows. George Barron liked to watch it from the lawn in front of the house. He couldn’t see the beach through the mist, but he could hear the pleasant wash of the sea against the sand.
Through breaks in the waves of fog he saw occasional patches of sky, and once in a while the sun’s rays shot through with a moment’s warming brilliance. He liked the fog. It was something tangible pouring in with the breath of far, strange places.
It was a kind of disease, he thought, this yearning for the strange and faraway, and he was glad he had been able to curb it in his youth. It was a disease that made one search always for something different from what is already possessed. But he could enjoy the feeling and the pleasure o
