The Brother of Daphne Part 9

"I belive it is."

She was sitting on a low slab of rock, clad in a bathing-costume of plain dark blue, and fas.h.i.+oned just like my own. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and divided at the back into two long, thick plaits which were turned up and hair-pinned round the top of her head.

Her features were beautiful and her eyes big and dark as her hair. Her figure was slim and graceful, and her arms and hands and feet were very shapely. One brown knee was crossed over the other, and her left hand held the camera.

"I do have luck, you know," I said.

"What luck?"

"Well, honestly, it's a great pleasure to meet you like this, when I might have spent all day talking with my silly crowd and never have known of your existence. Don't be afraid. I merely mean that I am enjoying your society, and I'm glad I came round the corner. I'm not in love with you, and I don't want never to leave your side again, but--oh, you understand, Mermaid, don't you? You look as if you could if you liked."

My companion stared out to sea with a faint smile on her lips. I flung out an arm with a gesture of despair.

"Oh, if you knew how sick I am of the girl about town, the girl of to-day, who won't be natural herself, and won't let you be natural either, who is always bored, and who has no use for anyone who isn't forever making mock love to her, or--Why on earth can't a man tell a woman he likes her company, and mean it, without the woman thinking he wants to kiss her, or marry her, or something?"

I broke off and looked at her.

"Go on," she said. "You interest me."

"Oh, Heavens," I said falteringly. "Why have you got such big eyes?"

At this, to my discomfiture, she broke into peals of merriment.

"Before you looked at me like that, I was really enjoying your company without wanting to kiss you."

"Steady!"

"Besides your eyes, there's your--Look here, it isn't fair."

"That'll do. I'll race you to that rock out there."

She was in the water first, but I beat her easily. We swam back together, and she took her seat on the slab, while I stretched myself on the sand by her side.

"You're a very singular man," she said after a while.

"I have been told so of many."

"And rather dull."

I sat up.

"Don't say you want me to make love to you!"

"Not much!" This emphatically.

"Ah, glad of a change, I suppose."

There was a silence, while she eyed me suspiciously. At length:

"I shall ask you to leave my cove if you're not careful," she said.

"Mermaid," I said, "I apologize. I was unaware that I had the honour to speak to the lady of the manor."

"Well, if you didn't really know who I was---- But you mustn't be dull."

I drew her attention to a sailing s.h.i.+p in the distance. "Now, that," I said, "is what I call a really good s.h.i.+p."

"Barque!"

"Barque, I mean. It must be--"

"About five thousand tons"

"Burthen. Exactly. By the way, I never know what that really means unless it means that, if you wanted to lift it, you couldn't."

"Try displacement."

"Thank you. It was off just such an one that I was cast away two years ago come Michaelmas. We were just standing by in the offing, when she sterruck with a grinding crash. There was a matter of seventy souls aboard, and I shall never forget the look on the captain's face as the s.h.i.+p's cat stole his place in the stern-sheets of the jolly-boat. I was thrown up on a desert island, I was. You ought to have seen me milking the goats on Spygla.s.s Hill."

"Did you wear a goatskin cap?"

"Did I not! And two muskets. But my snake belt was the great thing.

You see--"

"Which reminds me--I think it's about time I got civilized again."

"Not yet, Mermaid," I pleaded; "the sun is yet high."

"You don't suppose I'm going to stay here all day, do you? We're not on your precious island now."

"I only wish we were. I had my loaf of bread and jug of wine all right, but the one thing I wanted, Mermaid, was--"

"A woman to keep him company without thinking he wanted to kiss her, or marry her, or something. Whatever's that?"

I jumped to my feet and looked towards where she was pointing.

"It looks rather like--forgive me--a chemise."

"Good Heavens!"

Before I had time to move, she rushed into the surf and secured the floating garment, made another dart at something else, and was knocked down by a roller. I had her on her feet in a moment, but she dashed the water out of her eves and looked wildly to and fro over the sea.

"What is it, Mermaid?"

She tried to stamp her foot; but the four inches of water in which she was standing were against her.

"Can't you see, idiot? This is mine--this chemise--so's this shoe.

The tide's come up into my cave while I've been making a fool of myself talking to you, and all my things are gone. There's the other shoe."