She did it again.

He restored the piece of napery with a brave nonchalance, and took up the locket. The lady's eyes retorted as plainly as her lips could have done: "Too late!'

He remembered precisely how they did it, out of the tops of their firm white lids, -with a movement which was personal, a fascination which was irresistible. He was to read other speeches of these eyes, often repeated. But he was to read this one only once more.

Well, Brassid broke his guard and laughed with her.

"It is no laughing matter," said the lady with the lorgnon, fixing the lady who had laughed with its stare.

It was a critical moment: the lady who laughed might have retorted. But nothing further happened-except to Brassid. He was falling in love.

"I think it is," he said in her defense. And he said it with all Brassid's savagery. "Oh, well, it's your souvenir," said Mrs. Mouthon, odiously.

"It is," said Brassid.

He sprung the little case open and showed them a savage face much like his own. But there was a uniform with

a high collar. "My grandfather, the Indian-fighter. I wear it around my neck."

And the lady opposite guiltily put her head down, permitting Brassid to see the loveliest of blond crowns, and, now and then, the edge of her smile; now, again, almost a laugh.

And so Brassid fell in love.

They cross-examined Brassid with the precision and directness of barristers. He informed them that he came from the City, and who his parents were, and their parents, and theirs, all of whom seemed to be known to some of the six. The lady opposite kept her head down, but the smile came and went, nearer and nearer to laughter.

"Do you intend making some stay with us, sir?" inquired the lady with the one deaf ear.

"It is quite possible," said Brassid, and the lady opposite barely restrained her inclination to look up. "It is such a delightful little place, and the swimming must be fine."

Now Miss Princeps did look up. She seemed a little startled, and, then, did Brassid detect a bit of pleasure in his an

nouncement? At the same moment all of the six looked toward Miss Princeps and detected her. Perhaps they more than detected her.

"Bill" (that was the porter) "said that you were going up on the morning train."

Brassid laughed.

"Do you, then, swim?" asked Mrs. Mouthon.

"I am a very good swimmer," declared Brassid.

Again Miss Princeps looked up, sharply now, not caring that the six again stared at her. She inspected Brassid with some care. She seemed satisfied.

"Miss Princeps swims," said Miss Carat, simply.

Now the lady opposite and Brassid met in a frank stare. Brassid blushed, as we do when we think we have overstated our accomplishments in the presence of some one who knows.

"There is nothing the matter with her," one of the invalids said, and Brassid said with conviction:

"No."

Before the meal was over the lady with the pepper-box asked Brassid's first name, and formally presented him, including the lady opposite. But it was only as she rose and swept the table with a little smiling bow that Brassid really saw her superbness.

When she had left the room he found himself still on his feet staring out of the door whence she had vanished. They caught him in a sigh.

"Sit down!" commanded the lady who took snuff.

And they kept Brassid there and bullied him till he wanted to get up and fight the lot of them man-fashion.

They informed him severally that she was an actress; that she was a widow with a deformed child of which she was ashamed; that she was a deserted wife; that she had once been married to a very wicked man of title; that she was strange"-sat for hours on the beach alone, sang, swam, walked, did everything but flock with them.

66

"God bless her!" said Brassid.
The lady who snuffed arose.
"Lord help you!" she said grimly.
"Eh?" said Brassid.

"What were those women who lured a man into a cave and made a swine of him?"

Her appeal was to Brassid.

"I suppose you mean the sirens." "Yes, that was their name. That woman is a siren!"

"And you 're in love with her!" charged the lady who was deaf, in a thick voice. "In love!" laughed Brassid. "Ha, ha, ha!"

moment he arrived at the surf, and went out and under with a long, strong push. He saw a face on the bottom. It stared uncannily up at him through the wavering green water. Brassid followed it and dragged it breathlessly to the surface. There she laughed at him.

"I-I-thought you were d-dead!"

66

Not at all," smiled the Sea-Lady. Why, how long were you under?" "Not long."

It seemed as if you had been there all day!"

"My grandfather was a whaler," said the Sea-Lady, winking the water out of her eyes solemnly, as if that explained her.

"My grandfather was an Indian-fighter,"

At that moment she passed his door. She was softly singing:

“They sailed away

In a gallant bark."

He had seen her but once, yet he knew the rustle of her silken skirts.

The next morning at ten Brassid was composing poems in bed, quite as he did. at home. He hummed and sang the things he fetched from within in a fashion which lent color to Mrs. Mouthon's theory.

Some one knocked on his door. "Come in!" sang Brassid, happily. But it was only the colored porter. He was winking his eyes rapidly, fancying that in that way he looked penitent while he did not feel so. The rumor of Brassid's infatuation had reached the porter.

"I'm sorry, sir," said the porter.

"Oh! What for, Bill?" So, suddenly, had their comradeship grown! "Everybody is sorry now and then. Brace up!"

The porter stared.

"The six-o'clock train, sir." Now Brassid stared.

"I forgot it, sir."

"Thank you," said Brassid, and he gave the porter a dollar for forgetting the sixo'clock train! He had forgotten it more than the porter.

II

ON THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

THEY met more formally, presently, on the bottom of the sea. Brassid plunged in the

LXVI.-44

Her laughter broke loose.

"Look at me!" commanded Brassid, suddenly, with that savagery which he had from his grandfather. "You are shamming -and doing it beautifully. You were in distress down there! And if I had n't come along -"

But by that time she was doing exactly what Brassid had asked-looking at him with the most wonderful eyes of blue Brassid had seen since his mother died. Brassid funked ingloriously.

"The lady with the lorgnon has seen us, and is coming," she warned. "Yes!"

He was frightened too. "Let us swim a little." "Yes."

They plunged in.

"Be careful," said Brassid.

"My grandfather was a whaler," she laughed back as she raced away to sea. "Oh, you can swim!" he exclaimed joyously.

"Can you?" she laughed.

"A little," he answered.

Well, it was his first comradeship, and it happened to be an extraordinarily perfect one. It was so very blessed that, to use the words of Mrs. Paradigm (she was the lady. with the lorgnon), he went crazy over it. And perhaps if you had known Brassid's Sea-Lady you would not have wonderedyou might have commended him for going crazy. You remember that she had the eyes of Brassid's blessed mother.

"I never hoped to see them on earth again," he said to the face in the mirror.

Oh, she was rich and splendid and fragrant and melodious-I am using Brassid's book of adjectives-and altogether more lovely in every detail of herself than any one else on earth! And he had constantly the ecstatic feeling that he had discovered her, really; but he never did. For the Sea-Lady was unlike any one he had ever known. He literally knew that she was wonderful in every way that a lover could wish a sweetheart to be wonderful, yet there was not a single admission to go upon. Whenever she caught herself showing Brassid her heart,-and she would have been fond of showing this to Brassid if he had been a woman, perhaps, she went to cover-and asked him to swim! And I am glad to think that that is the only reason he never saw her heart-never really discovered her.

Until that last day-that second time the eyes said, "Too late!"

And of that I am to tell you now.

III

SHE MAY HAVE HAD BROTHERS

"By Jove!" said Brassid, that day, as he watched her conquest of the choppy waves, "you are something nautical! I do believe that your ancestors wore scales!"

"Oh, Brassid! Thank you! Think of having such a crest as that! Eight carp gules! And the nearest I can come to it is the whaler! Brassid, in the sea I almost

"I may have brothers-whom I call dear-and-so-"

"Have you?" demanded Brassid, with the ferocity that came and went quickly.

"No, sir," she answered obediently.

"Oh, you are the most delicious being on earth!" laughed he. "And I won't wait till we get to town!"

But Brassid had forgotten to tread, and got a generous mouthful of salt water.

"Brassid," wailed the lady, "I'm sorry for you; but you are punished for taking advantage of me at a time and in an element when I almost love you."

Don't you dare to pity me! I'm not done with you!" sputtered Brassid. “This is my chance-you said it-in-the

"Why?"

"You are mine out here. I am going to keep you out here."

Would you come and live with me in the Dragon King's palace beneath the sea, where it is always wet?"

"Yes. Whither thou goest I will go." "Brassid, I am going home. You will not be restrained."

"And I'll follow you. The only way to get rid of me is to marry me."

"Then I will never, never marry you, Brassid," said the Sea-Lady, leaving him that riddle, which he never solved. For it was the last day, and presently it would be the second time that her eyes of blue had said, "Too late!"

IV

BUT SHE WAS BEST OF ALL

SHE pulled him out of the water, and they bathed in the sun. Not a ship sailed the

sea.

His voice spoke first, as if he dreamed. a fragment: "But you are best of all!"

She looked up and found his eyes upon her. With her own she questioned him.

"Nothing is in sight, nothing can be heard, but what God has made. This!" He waved his hand at the immaculate sky. "That!" The limitless sea. "The earth!" He pointed where it stretched away from them to the vanishing-point. "You!"

"You!" she laughed.

"And it is all good. God alone knows how good. But," he repeated, while his gaze was fixed upon her upturned face, you are best of all!"

She kept her eyes upon him in wonder; for if he had not solved the Sea-Lady, she had not solved him. And this was very strange from savage Brassid.

"Yes; God made nothing so perfect as a perfect woman— —you!"

44

You think me perfect?"

66 Yes."

"Oh, Brassid!"

But something clanged in her brain. "I love you!"

"Don't, Brassid!" she begged. "You have touched to-day what you have never touched before, what no one has-don't!"

It was a mighty occasion; but she

"Why, Brassid! Who ever heard of a rejected lover taking the same walks with his beloved under the same trees by the light of the same moon?"

"Walks?" questioned Brassid, dully. "Our swims are the same as walks to other lo-"

"Aha!" cried Brassid, "you almost said 'lovers'!"

"Did I? How stupid of me!'

"Do you mean to say that you absolutely and positively refuse me?" shouted he, belligerently.

"Certainly not, my dear Brassid," she hurried forth. "I can't refuse what you have n't offered. And, dear Brassid," she went on caressingly, "I know that you won't offer-because-because-"

"Out with it!" cried Brassid, still in his ferocity.

"Because I like you so-to swim with!"
And when there is no swimming?"
"No, Brassid-"

"I tell you there will be!" he threatened.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it; for I should n't like this world so well without its Brassid—since I know him. But, Brassid dear,- there! the whaler again!-why must you marry me?"

"Because it's every woman's business to be married."

"But not every man's, then? So that I might marry some one else, and not bother you with-"

That is just the trouble!" cried the savage in him again. "You will marry some one else if I let you get away from me." "As if I were game!"

"You are. The noblest game on earth." Brassid!"

"Yes. You could n't go long uncaptured. How have you escaped? All the men you knew must have been blind, deaf, dumb."

"Ah, well," Miss Princeps sighed, "if one must be married some time or other, thank God that there are Brassids! But who ever heard of two married people swimming together!"

"We will," still threatened Brassid.

HIS GRANDFATHER'S COURAGE MADE
HER WANT TO LOVE HIM

IN the sea again, whither she dragged him after that, far from land, as they looked back at the people on the beach:

"Before you came," laughed the girl, "I had all the fun to myself. They would follow me with their glasses, expecting me to throw up my arms and call for help. The hotel man actually bought a rope with straps and buckles and things on the end to save me. They used to bring it down every time I went in. Now Bill uses it to pull the trunks up. And no one ever minds us. See, not a soul is looking this way! Brassid, it was lovely of you to come. You are"-she laughed, and by a deft stroke came so close as to touch him-"both my chaperon and palladium. Of course I suppose if we should ever get into trouble I should have to save you. My grandfather was a whaler. But back there they have the most beautiful confidence in you, just because you are a man. I am not pleased with you in that, Brassid. It is false pretense. I shall let you save yourself-remember."

"I would n't let you save me." "What! You ungrateful-Brassid! I can swim twice as far as you can. But I'm glad to hear that.”

"When I was taught to swim, my teacher dinned into my ears that I was never to forget when I went out that I had to come back. See?"

For reply she raced away from him. "My grandfather was a whaler. I was n't taught to go back."

He followed as lustily until he had caught her. They laughed splendidly.

"My grandfather," he laughed, "the Virginia ranger, you remember, was too proud to call for help when he fought his last fight within a hundred yards of the pickets of his own regiment."

"Brassid, I love that!" she cried breathlessly, going to his side. "What happened to him?"

"He was killed. But when they found him he had five dead Indians to his credit, while his hands were clutched upon the throat of another."

"That's why you adore him, is n't it? Otherwise you would probably never have heard of him. That is what makes us live in the memories of those who love us-just that one little thing, courage!"

"No. There is another and greater thing," said Brassid.

She looked up in her questioning way.
He smiled affectionately.
"Love," said Brassid.

She shook her head:
"Courage."

Love," he insisted.

"Let us put them both together," she said, "courage and love."

"Love and courage," he acquiesced. "You for love, I for courage."

Brassid watched her glowing young face and her strong young arms, as they struck out, in a new wonder. He had not yet solved the lovely Sea-Lady.

She went on with dilated nostrils:

Say, Brassid, that makes me want to love you. An ancestor like that! Oh, it beats the whaler! That's why I speak so often of him. It needed courage to be a whaler. Brassid, you never were so near winning me-is n't that what you men call it?-as right now. Go on, Brassid, about your Indian-fighter!"

"My grandfather probably would have won you," sighed Brassid.

"No; you. You are like him. I knew it from the first. Why did n't you tell me that at first? You would do as he did-if there were Indians."