acker and more sharply defined. In front of
them the point loomed, inky black. Like a bird of the night the little
canoe shot towards it, skimmed its darkness and then slipped,
effortless, into shining silver space. The smile of the moon! Pleasing
old hypocrite! Always she smiles the same upon two in a canoe!

They were paddling toward her so that her light fell full on the
doctor's face--a clean cut, virile face, manly, stern, yet with a
whimsical sweetness hidden somewhere.

"How handsome he is!" thought Esther, exactly as the moon intended.

"Strong, too," her thought added as the light picked out his well-set
shoulders and the sweep of the arm which sped the paddle so lightly yet
so strongly up and down. Clear, yet soft, the moon showed no touch of
grey in the hair (although the grey was there) nor did she point out the
markings which were the legacy of strenuous years. Seen so, he appeared
no older than she who watched shyly from girlish eyes.

With a little shiver of utmost content Esther settled herself against
the thwart of the canoe.

Manlike he did not know the meaning of that shiver.

"Fool that I am!" he exclaimed. "You are cold, and behold we have left
behind the shawl of Mrs. Sykes' grandmother!"

"Indeed we have not! The dog would have torn it to bits. I assure you
the shawl of the venerated ancestress was in the canoe before I was."

"Then wrap yourself up. It is wonderful how cool the nights are."

Esther was not cold. But it is sometimes pleasant to be commanded. This
is what enables man to persist in a certain pleasing delusion regarding
woman's natural attitude. When she occasionally pleases herself by a
simulation of subjection he immediately thrills with pride, crying,
"Aha! I have her mastered!" Of course he finds out his mistake later.

It pleased Esther, though not cold, to wrap herself in the shawl and it
pleased Callandar to see her do it. I assure you it left the whole
question of the subjection of women quite untouched.

The moon knew all about it but, feminine herself, she favoured the
deception. Around the girl's dark head she drew a circle of light. The
branching tendrils of her hair, all alive and fanlike now in the
coolness of the night, made a nimbus of black and silver from which her
shadowed face shone like a faint pure pearl. As he seemed younger, so
did she seem older; under the moon she was no longer a child, but a
woman with mysterious eyes.

An impulse came to him--