nful curiosity. Here at last was what he had needed. The proud
waters went over his soul. Here indeed the blue began.

He looked down at Miss Airedale, who had gone to sleep while waiting for
him to say something. He tiptoed away and went to his room to write down
some ideas. Against the wide challenge of that blue hemisphere, where
half the world lay open and free to the eye, the Bishop's prohibition
lost weight. He was resolved to preach a sermon.

At dusk he met Miss Airedale on the high balcony that runs around the
reading-room of the hotel. They were quite alone up there. Along the
Boardwalk, in the pale sentimental twilight, the translucent electric
globes shone like a long string of pearls. She was very tempting in
a gay evening frock, and reproached him for having neglected her. She
shivered a little in the cool wind coming off the darkening water. The
weakness of the hour was upon him. He put his arm tenderly round her as
they leaned over the parapet.

"See those darling children down on the sand," she said. "I do adore
puppies, don't you?"

He remembered Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers. Nothing is so potent as the
love of children when you are away from them. She gazed languishing
at him; he responded with a generous pressure. But his alarmed soul
thrilled with panic.

"You must excuse me a moment, while I dress for dinner," he said. He was
strangely terrified by the look of secret understanding in her beautiful
eyes. It seemed to imply some subtle, inexpressible pact. As a matter of
truth, she was unconscious of it: it was only the old demiurge speaking
in her; the old demiurge which was pursuing him just as ardently as he
was trailing the dissolving blue of his dream. But he was much agitated
as he went down in the elevator.

"Heavens," he said to himself; "are we all only toys in the power of
these terrific instincts?"

For the first time he was informed of the infinite feminine capacity for
being wooed.

That night they danced in the Submarine Grill. She floated in his
embrace with triumphant lightness. Her eyes, utilized as temporary lamps
by a lighting-circuit of which she was quite unaware, beamed with happy
lustre. The lay reader, always docile to the necessities of occasion,
murmured delightful trifles. But his private thoughts were as aloof
and shining and evasive as the goldfish that twinkled in the glass pool
overhead. He picked up her scarf and her handkerchief when she dropped
them. He smile