da hotel during the winter were her
only means of support while studying for college examinations during the
summer in Boston, where she lived.

Yet, although she was an inmate of Massachusetts, her face and figure
would have ornamented any light-opera stage. I never looked at her but
I thought so; and her cuffs and apron merely accentuated the delusion.
Such ankles are seldom seen when the curtain rises after the overture.
Odd that frivolous thoughts could flit through an intellect dedicated
only to science!

The man, Grue, had not stirred from his survey of the Atlantic Ocean. He
had a somewhat disturbing capacity for remaining motionless--like a
stealthy and predatory bird which depends on immobility for aggressive
and defensive existence.

The sea-wind fluttered his cotton shirt and trousers and the tattered
brim of his straw hat. And always I felt as though he were watching me
out of the back of his ratty head, through the ravelled straw brim that
sagged over his neck.

The pretty waitress had now chewed the end of her pencil to a
satisfactory pulp, and she was writing again in her diary, very intently,
so that my cautious touch on her arm seemed to startle her.

Meeting her inquiring eyes I said in a low voice:

"I am not sure why, but I don't seem to care very much for that man,
Grue. Do you?"

She glanced at the water's edge, where Grue stood, immovable, his back
still turned to us.

"I never liked him," she said under her breath.

"Why?" I asked cautiously.

She merely shrugged her shoulders. She did it gracefully.

I said:

"Have you any particular reason for disliking him?"

"He's dirty."

"He _looks_ dirty, yet every day he goes into the sea and swims about. He
ought to be clean enough."

She thought for a moment, then:

"He seems, somehow, to be fundamentally unclean--I don't mean that he
doesn't wash himself. But there are certain sorts of animals and birds
and other creatures from which one instinctively shrinks--not, perhaps,
because they are materially unclean--"

"I understand," I said. After a silence I added: "Well, there's no chance
now of sending him back, even if I were inclined to do so. He appears to
be familiar with these latitudes. I don't suppose we could find a better
man for our purpose. Do you?"

"No. He was a sponge fisher once, I believe."

"Did he tell you so?"

"No. But yesterday, when you took the boat and cruised to the south, I
sat writing here and keepin