it was eleven o'clock and there was-only a scattering of people left in the corners of the veranda grill , there was a soft sighing from the moonlit sea outside as the great liner scythed the black meadow of the atlantic and , in the stern , only the slightest lope in her stride indicated a long soft swell , the slow , twelve-a-minute heart-beat of a sleeping ocean , to the two people sitting close together behind the pink-shaded light .