ither mean nor ungenerous,
his energy unwasted, his mind untainted by self-indulgence. If he were
capable of cruelty to others, he was at least equally capable of turning
the knife on himself, cutting off or plucking out an offending member.
This appealed to the heroic in her. While over her vision, as she thus
considered him, hung the glamour of youth which, to youth, displays such
royal enchantments--untrodden fields of hope and promise inviting the
tread of eager feet, the rush of glorious goings forward towards
conquests, towards wonders, well assured, yet to be. The personality of
this man clearly admitted no denial, as little bragged as it apologized,
since his candour matched his force of will.

Taking stock of him thus, from the corner of the sofa, imagination,
intelligence, affections alike actively in play, Damaris' colour rose,
her pulse quickened, and her great eyes grew wide, finely and softly gay.

Faircloth moved. Turned his head. Met her eyes, and looking into them his
face blanched perceptibly under its _couche_ of sunburn.

"Damaris," he said, "Damaris, what has happened?--Stop though, you
needn't tell me. I know. We've found one another--haven't we?--Found one
another more in the silence than in the talking.--Queer, things should
work that way! But it puts a seal on fact. For they couldn't so work
unless the same stuff, the same inclination, were embedded right in the
very innermost substance of both of us. You look rested. You look
glad--bless you.--Isn't that so?"

"Yes," she simply told him.

Faircloth set his elbows on his knees, his chin on his two hands, wrist
against wrist, and his glance ranged out over the garden again, to the
pale strip of the Bar spread between river and sea.

"Then I can go," he said, "but not because I've tired you."

"I shall never be tired any more from--from being with you."

"I don't fancy you will. All the same I must go, because my time's up. My
train leaves Marychurch at six, and I have to call at the Inn, to bid my
mother good-bye, on my way to the station."

Was the perfect harmony, the perfect adjustment of spirit to spirit a wee
bit jarred, did a mist come up over the heavenly bright sky, Faircloth
asked himself? And answered doggedly that, if it were so, he could not
help it. For since, by all ruling of loyalty and dignity, the wall of
partition was ordained to stand, wasn't it safer to remind both himself
and Damaris, at times, of its presence? He mu