surprising her behind her bright shield, but sometimes
when she wasn't thinking it fell aside, and what men saw then took
their breath from them, for it was as though they were falling through
endless wells of infinite sweetness. And afterwards they could have
told you nothing further of her loveliness; when they got as far as her
eyes they were drowned. Her features, the curves of her cheeks and lips
and chin and delicate nostrils, were as finely-turned as the edge of a
wild-rose petal, and her skin had the freshness of dew. The sight of
her brought the same sense of delight as the sight of a meadow of
cowslips. As sweet and sunny a scent breathed out from her beauty.

But all this Martin only felt without seeing, for he was drowned.
Gillian, I suppose, wasn't thinking. So they held each other's hands
and looked at each other.

Presently Martin said, "It's time now, Gillian, and you can go."

"Yes, Martin," said Gillian. "How shall I go?"

"As I came," said he.

"Before I go," said she, "I am going to ask you a question. You have
asked my friends a lot of questions these six nights, which they have
answered frankly, and you have twisted their answers round your little
finger. Now you must answer my question as frankly."

"And what will you do?" asked Martin.

"I won't twist your answer," said Gillian gently. "I'll take it for
what it is worth. You have been laughing up your sleeve a little at my
friends because, having a quarrel with men, they were sworn to live
single. But you live single too. Tell me, if you please, what is your
quarrel with girls?"

Martin dropped her hands until he held each by the little finger only,
and then he answered, "That they are so much too good for us, Gillian."

"Thank you, Martin," said Gillian, taking her hands away. "And now
please ask them to send over the swing, for it is time for me to go to
Adversane." And as she spoke the light played over her eyes again and
floated him up to the surface of things where he could swim without
drowning. He saw now the flowers of her loveliness, but no longer the
deeps of those gray pools where the light shimmered between herself and
him. So he turned and climbed to the pent roof of the Well-House, and
looked towards the group of shadows clustered under the apple-tree
around the swing; and they understood and launched it through the air,
and he caught it as it came. And Gillian in a moment was up beside him.

"Are you ready?" said Martin