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She opened her eyes wide–those glorious, trusting eyes. “But why should you be afraid to tell me?”

He laughed again softly, and kissed her lips. “I will make a rough sketch in the morning and show it you. It won’t be a study–only an idea. You are going to pose for the study.”

“I?” she said, half-startled.

“You–yes, you!” His eyes looked deeply into hers. “Haven’t you realised yet that you are my inspiration?” he said. “It is going to be the picture of my life–‘Aphrodite the Beautiful!'”

She quivered afresh at his words. “Am I really–so beautiful?” she faltered. “Would you think so if–if you didn’t love me?”

“Would I have loved you if you weren’t?” laughed Knight. “My darling, you are exquisite as a passion-flower grown in Paradise. To worship you is as natural to me as breathing. You are heaven on earth to me.”

“You love me–because of that?”

“I love you,” he answered, “soul and body, because you are you. There is no other reason, heart of my heart. When my picture of pictures is painted, then–perhaps–you will see yourself as I see you–and understand.”

She uttered a quick sigh, clinging to him with a hold that was almost convulsive. “Ah, yes! To see myself with your eyes! I want that. I shall know then–how much you love me.”

“Will you? But will you?” he said, softly derisive. “You will have to show me yourself and your love–all there is of it–before you can do that.”

She lifted her head from his shoulder. The fire that he had kindled in her soul was burning in her eyes. “I am all yours–all yours,” she told him passionately. “All that I have to offer is your own.”

His face changed a little. The tender mockery passed, and an expression that was oddly out of place there succeeded it. “Ah, you shouldn’t tell me that, sweetheart,” he said, and his voice was low and held a touch of pain. “I might be tempted to take too much–more than I have any right to take.”

“You have a right to all,” she said.

But he shook his head. “No–no! You are too young.”

“Too young to love?” she said, with quick scorn.

His arm was close about her. “No,” he answered soberly. “Only so young that you may–possibly–make the mistake of loving too well.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice had a startled note; she pressed nearer to him.

He lifted a hand and pointed to the silver pathway on the sea. “I mean that love is just moonshine–just moonshine; the dream of a night that passes.”

“Not in a night!” she cried, and there was anguish in the words.

He bent again swiftly and kissed her lips. “No, not in a night, sweetheart. Not even in two. But at last–at last–tout passe!”

“Then it isn’t love!” she said with conviction.

He snapped his fingers at the moonlight with a gesture half-humorous, yet half-defiant. “It is life,” he said, “and the irony of life. Don’t be too generous, my queen of the sea! Give me what I ask–of your graciousness! But–don’t offer me more! Perhaps I might take it, and then–“

He turned with the words, as if the sentence were ended, and Columbine went with him, bewildered but too deeply fascinated to feel any serious misgiving. She did not ask for any further explanation, something about him restrained her. But she knew no doubt, and when he halted in the shadow of the deserted quay and took her face once more between his hands with the one word, “Tomorrow!” she lifted eyes of perfect trust to his and answered simply, “Yes, tomorrow!”

And the rapture of his kisses was all-sufficing. She carried away with her no other memory but that.

CHAPTER V

MIDSUMMER MORNING

It was two mornings later, very early on Midsummer Day, that Rufus the Red, looking like a Viking in the crystal atmosphere of sky and sea, rowed the stranger with great, swinging strokes through the fishing fleet right out into the burning splendour of the sun. Knight had entered the boat in the belief that he was going to see something of the raising of the nets. But it became apparent very soon that Rufus had other plans for his entertainment, for he passed his father by with no more than a jerk of the head, which Adam evidently interpreted as a sign of farewell rather than of greeting, and rowed on without a pause.