“I think you are quite right to hold your head up above these fisher fellows,” remarked Knight, his grey eyes watching her with an appraising expression.  “They are as much out of place near you as a bed of bindweed would be in the neighbourhood of a passion-flower.”  His glance took in her still panting bosom.  “I think you are something of a passion-flower,” he said, faintly smiling.  “I wonder at any man daring to risk offending you.”

Columbine stood up with the free movement of a disdainful princess.  “Oh, he’s just a lout,” she said.  “He doesn’t know any better.  It isn’t as if you had done it.”

“That would have been different, would it?” said Knight.

She smiled, but a sombre light still shone in her eyes.  “Quite different,” she said with simplicity.  “You see, you’re a gentleman.  And—­gentlemen—­don’t do unpleasant things like that.”

He laughed a little.  “You make me feel quite nervous.  What a shocking thing it would be if I ever did anything to forfeit your good opinion.”

“You couldn’t,” said Columbine.

“Couldn’t!” He repeated the word with an odd inflection.

“It wouldn’t be you,” she explained with the utmost gravity, as one stating an irrefutable fact.

“Thank you,” said Knight.

“Oh, it’s not a compliment,” she returned.  “It’s just the truth.  There are some people—­a few people—­that one knows one can trust through and through.  And you are one of them, that’s all.”

“Is that so?” said Knight.  “You know, that’s rather—­a colossal thing—­to say of any one.”

“Then you are colossal,” said Columbine, smiling more freely.

Knight turned aside, and picked up the sketch-book he had laid upon the table on entering.  “Are you sure you are not rash?” he said, rather in the tone of one making a remark than asking a question.

“Fairly sure,” said Columbine.

She followed him.  Perhaps he had foreseen that she would.  She stood by his side.

“May I see the latest?” she asked.

He opened the book and showed her a blank page.  “That is the latest,” he said.

She looked at him interrogatively.

“I am waiting for my—­inspiration,” he said.

“I hope you will find it soon,” she said.

He answered her with steady conviction.  “I shall find it tonight by moonlight at the Spear Point Rock.”

Her face clouded a little.  “I believe Adam is going to take you,” she said.

“What?” said Knight.  “You are never going to let me down?”

She smiled with a touch of irony.  “It was the Spear Point you wanted,” she reminded him.

“And you,” said Knight, “to show the way.”

Something in his tone arrested her.  Her beautiful eyes sank suddenly to the blank page he held.  “Adam can do that—­as well as I can,” she said.

“But you said you would,” said Knight.  His voice was low; he was looking full at her.  He saw the rich colour rising in her cheeks.  “What is it?” he said.  “Won’t they let you?”