, he was
more than ever like the figurehead on the old ship that I had seen in my
childhood. He carried over his arm a cloak of the same sea-blue. It was
this cloak which afterward played an important part in the mystery of
Nancy's disappearance.

His quick glance swept Nancy--the ghostly Nancy in gray, with only the
blue of her eyes, and that touch of artificial pink in her cheeks to
redeem her from somberness. He shook his head with a gesture of
impatience.

"I don't like it," he said, abruptly. "Why do you deaden your beauty
with dull colors?"

Nancy's eyes challenged him. "If it is deadened, how do you know it is
beauty?"

"May I show you?" Again there was that tense excitement which I had
noticed in the garden.

"I don't know what you mean," yet in that moment the color ran up from
her neck to her chin, the fixed pink spots were lost in a rush of lovely
flaming blushes.

For with a sudden movement he had snatched off her cap, and had thrown
the cloak around her. The transformation was complete. It was as if he
had waved a wand. There she stood, the two long, thick braids, which she
had worn pinned close under her cap, falling heavily like molten metal
to her knees, the blue cloak covering her--heavenly in color, matching
her eyes, matching the sea, matching the sky, matching the eyes of Olaf.

I think I must have uttered some sharp exclamation, for Olaf turned to
me. "You see," he said, triumphantly, "I have known it all the time. I
knew it the first time that I saw her in the garden."

Nancy had recovered herself. "But I can't stalk around the streets in a
blue cloak with my hair down."

He laughed with her. "Oh, no, no. But the color is only a symbol. Modern
life has robbed you of vivid things. Even your emotions. You
are--afraid--" He caught himself up. "We can talk of that after our
swim. I think we shall have a thousand things to talk about."

Nancy held out her hand for her cap, but he would not give it to her.
"Why should you care if your hair gets wet? The wind and the sun will
dry it--"

I was amazed when I saw that she was letting him have his way. Never for
a moment had Anthony mastered her. For the first time in her life Nancy
was dominated by a will that was stronger than her own.

I sat on deck and watched them as they swam like two young sea gods,
Nancy's bronze hair bright under the sun. Olaf's red-gold crest....

The blue cloak lay across my knee. Nancy had cast it off as she had