The girl rose quickly. "Do you mind waiting a little? I mustn't neglect
my dishes, and--if you don't mind--I'd rather not be left alone any
longer than necessary. You know...."

She ended with a nervous laugh, depreciatory.

"Why, surely. And I'll help with the dish-cloth."

"You'll do nothing of the sort. I'd rather do it all myself. Please."
She waved him back to his chair with a commanding gesture. "I mean
it--really."

"Well," he consented, doubtful, "if you insist...."

She worked rapidly above the steaming dish-pan, heedless of the effects
upon her hands and bared arms: busy and intent upon her business, the
fair head bowed, the cheeks faintly flushed.

Whitaker lounged, profoundly intrigued, watching her with sober and
studious eyes, asking himself questions he found for the present
unanswerable. What did she mean to him? Was what he had been at first
disposed to consider a mere, light-hearted, fugitive infatuation,
developing into something else, something stronger and more enduring?
And what did it mean, this impression that had come to him so suddenly,
within the hour, and that persisted with so much force in the face of
its manifest impossibility, that he had known her, or some one strangely
like her, at some forgotten time--as in some previous existence?

It was her voice that had made him think that, her voice of marvellous
allure, crystal-pure, as flexible as tempered steel, strong, tender,
rich, compassionate, compelling.... Where had he heard it before, and
when?

And who was she, this Miss Fiske? This self-reliant and self-sufficient
woman who chose to spend her summer in seclusion, with none but servants
for companions; who had comprehension of machinery and ran her
motor-boat alone; who went for lonely swims in the surf at dawn; who
treated men as her peers--neither more nor less; who was spied upon,
shadowed, attacked, kidnapped by men of unparalleled desperation and
daring; who had retained her self-possession under stress of
circumstance that would have driven strong men into pseudo-hysteria; who
now found herself in a position to the last degree ambiguous and
anomalous, cooped up, for God only knew how long, upon a lonely
hand's-breadth of land in company with a man of whom she knew little
more than nothing; and who accepted it all without protest, with a
serene and flawless courage, uncomplaining, displaying an implicit and
unquestioning faith in her companion: what manner of woman was