ingers, her skin cool, soft and perfumed, her eyes
bright, her lips smiling, and her magnificent hair in order. But from
that moment onward she was always about him, nestling close to him when
they were alone, her eyes on his when they walked arm in arm through
the streets.

In the morning she bathed in the sea while Wilhelm sat on the shore and
watched her. She swam like a fish; he could not swim at all. She
pledged her word to make him equally proficient in a few days, but her
superiority made him feel small, and he would not accept her offer. For
twenty minutes she practiced her art in the water, lay on her back and
on her side, turned somersaults, dived, trod the water and finally came
out, like Venus newly risen from the waves, and joined Wilhelm, who was
waiting for her with her bath-mantle. He enveloped her in its soft
folds, she roguishly shook the drops of water off her rosy finger-tips
into his face and hurried to her bathing house without a glance for the
spectators who had been watching her graceful play in the water, and
devoured her with their eyes when she came on dry land.

The rest of the day was filled up by long walks broken by delightful
rests under the shade of cornricks on grassy hillslopes beside some
purling brook. Then Pilar would sit on the rug or the camp stool, while
Wilhelm lay at her feet with his head in her lap caressed by the little
hands that played with his hair or wandered softly over his face,
resting fondly on his lips for him to kiss. If there were flowers
within reach, she would pluck a quantity and strew his head and face
with the fresh petals, while he gazed alternately into the blue summer
sky and the bright brown eyes above him, or even closed his own for
quarters of an hour of delicious dreaming. Then everything outside his
immediate surroundings would fade from his mind, and he would be
conscious only of what was nearest to him, the faint scent of
ylang-ylang that hovered round the beautiful woman, her smooth,
caressing fingers, and the low sound of her deep, regular breathing.

"You are so handsome," she whispered in his ear on one such occasion,
and bending over him to kiss him; "do you know, I shall draw your
portrait."

"Can you draw?" he asked, raising himself on his elbow.

"I hardly know whether I ought to say yes," she returned, with an arch,
self-conscious smile that belied the humility of her tone. "But you
shall see."

"Very well," said he, "and while you a