sionable--feels very warmly
and tenderly toward the man who swam after me.... Won't you understand,
please? Listen, we have been engaged only a minute, and here already is
our first quarrel. You can see for yourself what would happen if we ever
married."

"It wouldn't be machine-made bliss, anyway," he said.

That seemed to interest her; she inspected him earnestly.

"Also," he added, "I thought you desired to take a sportsman's chances?"

"I--do."

"And I thought you didn't want to marry the man you ought to marry."

"That is--true."

"Then you certainly ought not to marry me--but, will you?"

"How can I when I don't--love you."

"You don't love me because you ought not to on such brief
acquaintance.... But _will_ you love me, Flavilla?"

She looked at him in silence, sitting very still, the bright hair veiling
her cheeks, the fish's tail curled up against her side.

"_Will_ you?"

"I don't know," she said faintly.

"Try."

"I--am."

"Shall I help you?"

Evidently she had gazed at him long enough; her eyes fell; her white
fingers picked at the seaweed pods. His arm closed around her; nothing
stirred but her heart.

"Shall I help you to love me?" he breathed.

"No--I am--past help." She raised her head.

"This is all so--so wrong," she faltered, "that I think it must be
right.... Do you truly love me?... Don't kiss me if you do.... Now I
believe you.... Lift me; I can't walk in this fish's tail.... Now set me
afloat, please."

He lifted her, walked to the water's edge, bent and placed her in the
sea. In an instant she had darted from his arms out into the waves,
flashing, turning like a silvery salmon.

"Are you coming?" she called back to him.

He did not stir. She swam in a circle and came up beside the rock. After
a long, long silence, she lifted up both arms; he bent over. Then, very
slowly, she drew him down into the water.

* * * * *

"I am quite sure," she said, as they sat together at luncheon on the
sandspit which divides Northport Bay from the s.w. of Oyster Bay, "that
you and I are destined for much trouble when we marry; but I love you so
dearly that I don't care."

"Neither do I," he said; "will you have another sandwich?"

And, being young and healthy, she took it, and biting into it, smiled
adorably at her lover.

[Illustration]

OTHER BOOKS BY

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

It was Mr. Chambers himself who wrote of the caprices of the My