her hands and lain in her hair was to him
beyond price; and yet he forbore sternly to seek after possession,
because an honest scruple would not allow that an orient pearl could
come to his hands but by magic purveyance.

'If a name were to seek for me?' she was pleased to inquire, on the watch
for colour which sprang when her words were gracious.

'I know,' he said, 'what most fitly would express you--oh! too well, for
it is over a defect that secretions of the sea have constructed a shape
of perfect beauty; the name of a pearl only--Margaret. If you--when you
shall come to be baptized----'

'You dare!' she said, and froze him with her look.

'It has come into my mind that you may be a traitor.'

'No!'

'Hear now! Look me in the eyes and deny it if you can. It is for the sake
of another that you seek after me; that persuading, beguiling, if you can
coercing me--me--who spared you, tolerated you, inclined to you, you
would extract from the sea an equivalent for her loss, and proclaim that
her reproach is taken away.'

There was such venom in look and tone, that his face grew strained and
lost colour.

'For your sake first and foremost.'

'By no means for your own?'

'Diadyomene, I would lay down my life for you!' he breathed passionately.

'But not give up your soul--for me?'

Ever so gently she said this. The boy quivered and panted against
suspecting the words of their full worth. She directed her eyes away, to
leave him to his own interpretation. The sunlight turned them to gems of
emerald; the wind swept her hair about her clear throat; one hand clasped
the curve of her knee. Never yet had he touched her, never felt so much
as a thread of blown hair against his skin. One hand lay so near,
straitly down-pressed on the rough rock, fragile, perfect; shell-pink
were the finger-tips. He said 'No' painfully, while forth went his hand,
broad, sunburnt, massive, and in silent entreaty gently he laid it over
hers.

Cold, cold, cold, vivid, not numbing, thrills every nerve with intense
vitality, possesses the brain like the fumes of wine. The magic of the
sea is upon him.

Rocks, level sands, sky, sun, fade away; a misty whirl of the sea
embraces him, shot with the jewelled lightnings of swift living
creatures, with trains of resplendent shapes imperfectly glimpsed, with
rampant bulks veiled in the foam of their strength. A roar is in his
ears, in all his veins; acclaim and a great welcome of his presence