The smooth skin, the vivid lips slightly upcurled, the straight delicate nose, the cheeks so smoothly rounded where the dark thick lashes swept their bloom as she looked downward at the water—­all this was abstractly beautiful; very lovely, too, the full column of the neck, and the rounded arms guiltless of sunburn or tan.

So unusually white were both neck and arms that Hamil ventured to speak of it, politely, asking her if this was not her first swim that season.

Voice and question roused her from abstraction; she turned toward him, then glanced down at her unstained skin.

“My first swim?” she repeated; “oh, you mean my arms?  No, I never burn; they change very little.”  Straightening up she sat looking across the boat at him without visible interest at first, then doubtfully, as though in an effort to say something polite.

“I am really very grateful to you for letting me sit here.  Please don’t feel obliged to amuse me during this annoying fog.”

“Thank you; you are rather difficult to talk to.  But I don’t mind trying at judicious intervals,” he said, laughing.

She considered him askance.  “If you wish to row in, do so.  I did not mean to keep you here at sea—­”

“Oh, I belong out here; I’m from the Ariani yonder; you heard her bell in the fog.  We came from Nassau last night....  Have you ever been to Nassau?”

The girl nodded listlessly and glanced at the white yacht, now becoming visible through the thinning mist.  Somewhere above in the viewless void an aura grew and spread into a blinding glory; and all around, once more, the fog turned into floating golden vapour shot with rain.

The girl placed both hands on the gunwales as though preparing to rise.

“Not yet!” said Hamil sharply.

“I beg your pardon?”—­looking up surprised, still poised lightly on both palms as though checked at the instant of rising into swift aerial flight—­so light, so buoyant she appeared.

“Don’t go overboard,” he repeated.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m going to row you in.”

“I wish to swim; I prefer it.”

“I am only going to take you to the float—­”

“But I don’t care to have you.  I am perfectly able to swim in—­”

“I know you are,” he said, swinging clear around in his seat to face her, “but I put it in the form of a request; will you be kind enough to let me row you part way to the float?  This fog is not ended.”

She opened her lips to protest; indeed, for a moment it looked as if she were going overboard without further argument; then perhaps some belated idea of civility due him for the hospitality of his boat restrained her.

“You understand, of course, that I am quite able to swim in,” she said.

“Yes; may I now row you part way?  The fog is closing in again.”

She yielded with a pretty indifference, none the less charming because there was no flattery in it for him.  He now sat facing her, pushing his oars through the water; and she stole a curious glance at his features—­slightly sullen for the moment—­noticing his well-set, well-shaped head and good shoulders.