skilful artisan who blew
wonderful rainbow fabrics out of glass without breaking it; she blew the
tender passion into a thousand shapes, and admired every one. Her
criminal culpability consisted in forgetting the fact that it could not
be trusted with children.

Nature seems to delight in contrasts. As though to atone for the fog she
sent a dazzling day out of the northwest, and the summer world was
stained in new colours. The yachts were whiter, the water bluer, the
grass greener; the stern grey rocks themselves flushed with purple. The
wharves were gay, and dark clustering foliage hid an enchanted city as
the Folly glided between dancing buoys. Honora, with a frightened glance
upward at the great sail, caught her breath. And she felt rather than saw
the man beside her guiding her seaward.

A discreet expanse of striped yellow deck separated them from the wicker
chairs where Mrs. Shorter and Mr. Dewing were already established. She
glanced at the profile of the Viking, and allowed her mind to dwell for
an instant upon the sensations of that other woman who had been snatched
up and carried across the ocean. Which was the quality in him that
attracted her? his lawlessness, or his intellect and ambition? Never, she
knew, had he appealed to her more than at this moment, when he stood, a
stern figure at the wheel, and vouchsafed her nothing but commonplaces.
This, surely, was his element.

Presently, however, the yacht slid out from the infolding land into an
open sea that stretched before them to a silver-lined horizon. And he
turned to her with a disconcerting directness, as though taking for
granted a subtle understanding between them.

"How well you sail," she said, hurriedly.

"I ought to be able to do that, at least," he declared.

"I saw you when you came in the other day, although I didn't know who it
was until afterwards. I was standing on the rocks near the Fort, and my
heart was in my mouth."

He answered that the Dolly was a good sea boat.

"So you decided to forgive me," he said.

"For what?"

"For staying in Newport."

Before accepting the invitation she had formulated a policy, cheerfully
confident in her ability to carry it out. For his decision not to leave
Newport had had an opposite effect upon her than that she had
anticipated; it had oddly relieved the pressure. It had given her a
chance to rally her forces; to smile, indeed, at an onslaught that had so
disturbed her; to examine the matter