young man, did not
interest her at all, even enough to be aware of it or of him.

This cool unconsciousness of self, of him, of a situation which to any
wholesome masculine mind contained the germs of humour, romance, and all
sorts of amusing possibilities, began to be a little irksome to him. And
still her aloofness amused him, too.

"Do you know of any decorous reason why we should not talk to each
other occasionally during this fog?" he asked.

She turned her head, considered him inattentively, then turned it away
again.

"No," she said indifferently; "what did you desire to say?"

Resting on his oars, the unrequited smile still forlornly edging his
lips, he looked at his visitor, who was staring into the fog, lost in
her own reflections; and never a glimmer in her eyes, never a quiver of
lid or lash betrayed any consciousness of his gaze or even of his
presence. And he continued to inspect her with increasing annoyance.

The smooth skin, the vivid lips slightly upcurled, the straight delicate
nose, the cheeks so smoothly rounded where the dark thick lashes swept
their bloom as she looked downward at the water--all this was abstractly
beautiful; very lovely, too, the full column of the neck, and the
rounded arms guiltless of sunburn or tan.

So unusually white were both neck and arms that Hamil ventured to speak
of it, politely, asking her if this was not her first swim that season.

Voice and question roused her from abstraction; she turned toward him,
then glanced down at her unstained skin.

"My first swim?" she repeated; "oh, you mean my arms? No, I never burn;
they change very little." Straightening up she sat looking across the
boat at him without visible interest at first, then doubtfully, as
though in an effort to say something polite.

"I am really very grateful to you for letting me sit here. Please don't
feel obliged to amuse me during this annoying fog."

"Thank you; you _are_ rather difficult to talk to. But I don't mind
trying at judicious intervals," he said, laughing.

She considered him askance. "If you wish to row in, do so. I did not
mean to keep you here at sea--"

"Oh, I belong out here; I'm from the _Ariani_ yonder; you heard her bell
in the fog. We came from Nassau last night.... Have you ever been to
Nassau?"

The girl nodded listlessly and glanced at the white yacht, now becoming
visible through the thinning mist. Somewhere above in the viewless void
an aura grew and spread i