blowing in the sea-wind.

Our railway companionship had been of the slightest, also absolutely
formal; for I was too absorbed in conjecturing the meaning of this
journey to be more than absent-mindedly civil; and she, I fancy, had
had time for repentance and perhaps for a little fright, though I
could discover traces of neither.

I remember she left the train at some city or other where we were held
for an hour; and out of the car-window I saw her returning with a
brand-new grip sack.

She must have bought clothes, for she continued to remain cool and
fresh in her summer shirt-waists and short outing skirt; and she
looked immaculate now, sitting there beside me, the trace of a smile
curving her red mouth.

"I'm looking for a personage named Slunk," I observed.

After a moment's silent consideration of the Atlantic Ocean she said,
"When do my duties begin, Mr. Gilland?"

"The Lord alone knows," I replied, grimly. "Are you repenting of your
bargain?"

"I am quite happy," she said, serenely.

Remorse smote me that I had consented to engage this frail,
pink-and-ivory biped for an enterprise which lay outside the suburbs
of Manhattan. I glanced guiltily at my victim; she sat there, the
incarnation of New York piquancy--a translated denizen of the
metropolis--a slender spirit of the back offices of sky-scrapers. Why
had I lured her hither?--here where the heavy, lavender-tinted
breakers thundered on a lost coast; here where above the dune-jungles
vultures soared, and snowy-headed eagles, hulking along the sands,
tore dead fish and yelped at us as we passed.

Strange waters, strange skies--a strange, lost land aquiver under an
exotic sun; and there she sat with her wise eyes of a child,
unconcerned, watching the world in perfect confidence.

"May I pay a little compliment to your pluck?" I asked, amused.

"Certainly," she said, smiling as the maid of Manhattan alone knows
how to smile--shyly, inquiringly--with a lingering hint of laughter in
the curled lips' corners. Then her sensitive features fell a trifle.
"Not pluck," she said, "but necessity; I had no chance to choose, no
time to wait. My last dollar, Mr. Gilland, is in my purse!"

With a gay little gesture she drew it from her shirt-front, then,
smiling, sat turning it over and over in her lap.

The sun fell on her hands, gilding the smooth skin with the first tint
of sunburn. Under the corners of her eyes above the rounded cheeks a
pink stain lay like