wonderful; they held a mystery that
beckoned and eluded in the same subtle moment.

"I?" she said. "I am her companion, her familiar spirit. Sometimes she
calls me her angel."

The man moved as if something had stung him, but he checked himself with
instinctive self-control. "And your name?" he said.

She turned out her hands with a little gesture that was utterly
unstudied and free from self-consciousness. "My name is Rosemary," she
said. "It means--remembrance."

"You are her adopted child?" Courteney was, looking at her curiously.
Out of what part of Rosa Mundi's strange, fretted existence had the
desire for remembrance sprung to life? He had deemed her a woman of many
episodes, each forgotten as its successor took its place. Yet it seemed
this child held a corner in her memory that was to last.

She turned her face to the sun. "We have adopted each other," she said
naively. "When Rosa Mundi is old, I shall take her place, so that she
may still be remembered."

The words, "Heaven forbid!" were on Courteney's lips. He checked them
sharply, but something of his original grimness returned as he said,
"And now that you are on the other side of the breakwater, what are you
going to do?"

She looked up at him speculatively, and in a moment tossed back the
short golden curls that clustered at her neck. She was sublimely young.
In the eyes of the man, newly awakened, she had the look of one who has
seen life without comprehending it. "I always like to get the other side
of things, don't you?" she said. "But I won't stay with you if you are
bored. I am going right to the end of the rocks to see the tide come
in."

"And be washed away?" suggested Courteney.

"Oh no," she assured him confidently. "That won't happen. I'm not nearly
so young as I look. I only dress like this when I want to enjoy myself.
Rosa Mundi says"--her eyes were suddenly merry--"that I'm not
respectable. Now, don't you think that sounds rather funny?"

"From her--yes," said Courteney.

"You don't like her?" The shrewd curiosity of a child who desires
understanding upon a forbidden subject was in the question.

The man evaded it. "I have never seen her except in the limelight."

"And you didn't like her--then?" Keen disappointment sounded in her
voice.

His heart smote him. The child was young, though possibly not so young
as she looked. She had her ideals, and they would be shattered soon
enough without any help from him.

With a brief l