their way! The red-beaked oyster-bird flew by, and
close down to the sea skimmed the razor-bill shear-water, with his head
bent forward and his feet tilted up, just grazing the water with his
open bill as he flew, and leaving a shining mark behind, as though he
held a pencil in his mouth and was running a line. The lazy gulls, who
had no work to do, and would not have done it if they had, rode at ease
on the little wavelets close in shore. The Sister, being asked,
confessed that she liked the lazy gulls best. Being pressed to say why,
she thought it was because they were more like the white doves that sat
on the old stone well-curb in the convent garden.

Keith had always maintained that he liked to talk to women. He said that
the talk of any woman was more piquant than the conversation of the most
brilliant men. There was only one obstacle: the absolute inability of
the sex to be sincere, or to tell the truth, for ten consecutive
minutes. Today, however, as he wandered to and fro whither he would on
the reef, he also wandered to and fro whither he would in the mind, and
the absolutely truthful mind too, of a woman. Yet he found it dull! He
sighed to himself, but was obliged to acknowledge that it _was_ dull.
The lime-tree, the organ, the Sisters, the Sisters, the lime-tree, the
organ; it grew monotonous after a while. Yet he held his post, for the
sake of the old theory, until the high voice of Melvyna called them back
to the little fire on the beach and the white cloth spread with her best
dainties. They saw Carrington sailing in with an excited air, and
presently he brought the boat into the cove and dragged ashore his
prize, towed behind--nothing less than a large shark, wounded, dead,
after a struggle with some other marine monster, a sword-fish probably.
"A man-eater," announced the captor. "Look at him, will you? Look at
him, Miss Luke!"

But Miss Luke went far away, and would not look. In truth he was an ugly
creature; even Melvyna kept at a safe distance. But the two men noted
all his points; they measured him carefully; they turned him over, and
discussed him generally in that closely confined and exhaustive way
which marks the masculine mind. Set two women to discussing a shark, or
even the most lovely little brook-trout, if you please, and see how far
off they will be in five minutes!

But the lunch was tempting, and finally its discussion called them away
even from that of the shark. And then they all sai