uld paint
figures as I want to," he said, "I'd do Tristram as 'The Islander.' One
feels that he belongs here as inevitably as the moors or the sands or
the sea. Perhaps it is he who ought to be in bronze on the bluff,
instead of the Indian."

"But he'd have to face the sea," said Becky.

"Yes," Cope agreed, "he would. He loves it and his ancestors lived by
it. I'll stick to my Indian and the moor."

Becky gathered up her letters. "It is time for lunch, and Jane doesn't
like to be kept waiting. Won't you lunch with us? Grandfather will be
delighted."

"I shall get to be a perpetual guest. I feel as if I were taking
advantage of your hospitality."

"We shouldn't ask you if we didn't want you."

"Then I'll come."

They walked up the beach together. Becky was muffled in her red cape,
Cope had a sweater under his coat. The air was sharp and clear as
crystal.

"How anybody can go in bathing in this weather," Becky shivered, as a
woman ran down the sands towards the sea. She cast off her bathing cloak
and stood revealed, slim and rather startling, in yellow.

"She goes in every day," said Cope, "even when it storms."

"Who is she?"

"A dancer--from New York. Haven't you seen her before?"

"No. Where is she staying?"

"At the hotel."

"I thought the hotel was closed."

"Not for three weeks. There aren't many guests. This one came up a month
ago. She dances on the moor--practising for some play which opens in
October."

"What's her name?"

"I don't know. They call her 'The Yellow Daffodil' because of that
bathing suit."

The girl was swimming now beyond the breakers.

Becky was envious. "I wish I could swim like that."

"You can do other things--that she can't do."

"What things?"

"Well, be a lady, for example. That's not exactly cricket, is it, to
draw a deadly parallel? But I don't want people like that dancing on my
moor."

CHAPTER XIV

THE DANCER ON THE MOOR

I

Randy's letter had set Becky adrift. She was not in love with him. She
was sure of that. And he had said he would not marry her without love.
He had said that if she owned her soul she would think of Dalton as a
cad and as a coward.

It seemed queer that Randy should be demanding things of her. He had
always been so glad to take anything she would give, and now she had
offered him herself, and he wouldn't have her. Not till she owned her
soul.

She knew what he meant. The thought of George was always with her. She
k