now. He was different from any person she had
ever seen. Face and head belonged to some antique type of virile
beauty; eyes, hair, and skin seemed all of one golden brown. He walked
as if his very steps were joyous, and his whole personality seemed to
radiate an atmosphere of firm content. The girl's face was puzzled as
she studied him. This look of simple happiness was not familiar in New
York.

They strode on side by side, over the slopes where the girl had lost
her way. Every moment added to her sense of trust.

"I am afraid I startled you," she said, "coming up so softly."

"No," he answered smiling. "I knew that you were behind the ilex."

"You couldn't see!"

"I have ways of knowing."

He helped her courteously over the one stone wall they had to climb,
but, though she knew that he was watching her, he made no attempt to
talk. At last they reached the ilex grove above the villa, and Daphne
recognized home.

"I am grateful to you," she said, wondering at this unwonted sense of
being embarrassed. "Perhaps, if you will come some day to the villa
for my sister to thank you"-- The sentence broke off. "I am Daphne
Willis," she said abruptly, and waited.

"And I am Apollo," said the stranger gravely.

"Apollo--what?" asked the girl. Did they use the old names over here?

"Phoebus Apollo," he answered, unsmiling. "Is America so modern that
you do not know the older gods?"

"Why do you call me an American?"

A smile flickered across Apollo's lips.

"A certain insight goes with being a god."

Daphne started back and looked at him, but the puzzled scrutiny did not
deepen the color of his brown cheek. Suddenly she was aware that the
sunlight had faded, leaving shadow under the ilexes and about the
fountain on the hill.

"I must say good-night," she said, turning to descend.

He stood watching every motion that she made until she disappeared
within the yellow walls of the villa.

CHAPTER III

Through the great open windows of the room night with all her stars was
shining. Daphne sat by a carved table in the salon, the clear light of
a four-flamed Roman lamp falling on her hair and hands. She was
writing a letter, and, judging by her expression, letter writing was a
matter of life and death.

"I am afraid that I was brutal," the wet ink ran. "Every day on the
sea told me that. I was cowardly too."

She stopped to listen to the silence, broken only by the murmur of
insects calling