CHAPTER VI

"What shall we do?" asked Hermione.

Applebo looked at her and blinked.

"Can you swim as well as you can row and shoot and walk?" he asked.

Hermione looked out across the dancing waters of the bay.

"It must be a good mile and a half to the _Shark_," said she, slowly. "The yawl is about half the distance, but" ... the colour flooded her face... "even under the circumstances, I should hardly care to swim to her."

"No," said the poet, "that would not do. It is very perplexing."

"Couldn't you swim out to your boat, and come back with the dinghy?" asked Hermione.

"My Finn is ashore with the dinghy, and I have no other boat. I would swim to the _Shark_, but I do not like to leave you here alone. That pig of a keeper probably thinks that he has got us penned, and may be back at any moment with reinforcements. He knows that we would not care to take to the back country in our bathing suits, and besides, this is a promontory and probably wire-fenced on the side of the mainland. Perhaps the best thing for us to do would be to go straight to the club and see the superintendent. I would enjoy talking to that gentleman."

"No ... no ... no!" cried Hermione. "Think of how it would look!"

"You might wait here and let me go alone."

"No..." Hermione looked at him thoughtfully. "Are you a very strong swimmer?"

"I am quite at home in the wet."

"Then, let's try for the _Shark_. If I get tired you can take me in tow."

"What distance do you think that you are good for?" asked the poet.

"To the yawl, at least. The chances are that we will be sighted from the _Shark_. In fact, we might make them see us here ... but I would rather start back. If I play out, you can put me aboard the _Daffodil_ and keep on yourself for the schooner."

"All right. It _is_ ignominious to be found this way on the beach. I'll hide the gun and game-bag in the bushes at the foot of that tree."

This was quickly accomplished, when the two walked side by side down the sloping beach and waded slowly into the cold water. Knee-deep, the poet, who was in the lead, turned to Hermione.

"Take it easy," said he, "and don't try to talk. If you feel tired, put one hand on my shoulder and keep paddling. I could tow you all of the way, if need be, but you must swim as far as you can, so as not to get chilled. The water is like ice in the channel."

Hermione looked at him and nodded, and again there swept through her the warm little tingling which defied the chill of the sea. Quite a new sensation this, and one which Hermione was at a loss to comprehend, for the poet irritated even while he attracted her. He had a most vexing manner of talking to without looking at her. One indifferent glance and his yellow eyes were wandering beyond, anywhere except in her direction. Now, apparently waiting for her to take to the water, he was staring sleepily down the beach, interested apparently in a flock of gulls circling about some stranded object. The warm sunlight smote on his yellow mane and threw soft shadows on the bare, saffron-coloured skin, of the texture of velvet, and glowing richly in the high lights. He splashed a little water on his powerful arms, and the long, clean-cut muscles formed shifting contours to delight a sculptor's eye. A life-sized statue in dull gold looked the poet, beautiful as a demi-god and no more human, for he carried a curious atmosphere of detachment to his surroundings, as though the milieu were alien to him and he might, at any moment, betake himself away to his own place. Even for this lovely mortal maid beside him he seemed to show a polite disinterestedness not usually to be found in his ancient prototypes, if we are to believe the classics. Hermione felt this, and it aroused in her a sudden fierce perversity. Again there came that swift desire to waken him out of his sleepy indifference by a physical violence. There were also the traitorous thrills.

"Come on..." she said, with such sharp impatience that the poet turned and blinked at her inquiringly. Hermione's blue eyes flashed, and with a sudden spiteful motion of her hand, she sent a shower of the icy water spraying over him. Applebo gasped, laughed gurglingly, and flung himself forward to swim, Hermione following.

Side by side they thrust forward through the clear, cold water. Hermione was swimming prone; the poet lounged along on his side, his head half buried, the floating hair swirling about his ears, his eyes almost closed. To Hermione he looked as though he were asleep and propelled onward by some involuntary mechanism within. For a hundred yards neither of them spoke. Hermione turned on her side, facing Applebo. The thinnest of amber gleams between the double fringe of eyelashes told that he was watching her.

"You could swim all day, Cécile..." said he.

"What right have you to call me 'Cécile'?" snapped Hermione, tired of the constantly recurring error of identity. "Even if I were..."

"I call you 'Cécile' and not 'Miss Bell' because the latter is the conventional name, and I do not know you conventionally ... and never will. Fancy my writing verses to 'Miss Bell'! As we shall never meet, in all probability, after this hour, what does it matter?"

Hermione did not reply. The water seemed to strike her with a certain chill.

"Don't you want to see me again?"

"No. My life now is happy and tranquil. If I saw more of you my fate would, no doubt, be that of so many others. No, Cécile ... I do not want to see you again."

"But perhaps _I_ might care to see you."

"You will have the best of me in the verses I shall send you..."

"Oh, hang the verses...!" cried Hermione, and turned on to the other side.

At the end of a hundred yards, she rolled back again. The poet was harmlessly entertaining himself by taking large mouthfuls of water and spouting them into the air. Hermione burst into a ringing laugh. Applebo regarded her with sleepy inquiry.

"You look like a Triton ... with your cheeks puffed out that way," said she.

"Don't talk," replied the poet. "It adds to the effort of breathing. You look rather like a mermaid, yourself."

Hermione did not answer, and they swam on in silence through the golden August morn. The sensation of cold had passed, and it seemed to the girl that she was of one substance with the sea; of the same essence, the same elemental property, feeling neither warmth nor cold, nor fear, nor fatigue, nor anything that was alien or individual. She found herself a mermaid, at home, and felt that when it pleased her she could leave the surface to explore mysterious green depths far beneath.

He, her companion, was of it too. They were sea-mates; Triton and Nereid, subjects of the great god Poseidon, owing no fealty to any lord of the land, knowing no trammels but the wide boundaries of the ocean, that greater dominion of the world. She looked at Applebo. He appeared to be under the water, rather than upon it, and the yellow eyes rose from the swirl of brine to blink at her with comradeship. Hermione wanted to take his hand that they might plunge together to explore unknown depths ... never guessing, innocent girl, that she was well on the road to explore depths just as deep and redoubtable.

Well offshore, with their sea-world all about, a sudden odd vibration smote against their vigorous young bodies; a vibration that suggested a sound, felt rather than heard.

"Morning colours..." said the poet. "That's the gun from the Reading Room. Look!"

He flashed from the water an arm of gleaming gold from which sprang diamonds. Hermione turned upon her face to look toward the yacht flotilla. Down from the trucks of the anchored fleet fluttered the "night-caps," little tongues of black, while pennant and burgee passed them on their race aloft, and the national ensign, the Stars and Stripes, unfurled lazily from the taffrails. To their ears came, with sweet faintness, the shrilling of the sheaves as the halliards spun through them, while from a big steam-yacht, nearly a mile away, came the merry whistle of a bosun's pipe.

Hermione looked toward the _Daffodil_, then at Applebo.

"Rotten lack of etiquette," said he, and grinned. "I haven't any bunting."

"Why not? Are you a member of no clubs?"

"Oh, yes ... the New York and the Atlantic. There is bunting below, but I do not fly it because I am merely a parasite ... a pilot-fish."

Hermione did not answer, for their pace was a smart one and she had need of breath. Presently she asked:--

"How about the tide?"

"It is running flood out here," said Applebo, "otherwise I would not have let you swim. We are in the deep channel now, and the tide is helping. I've been gauging our drift on the shore."

The thought of the cold fathoms beneath sent no slightest chill through Hermione. She was too much a part of it all. Neither was she tired in the least. They were nearly abreast of the yawl, but seaward. Neither had suggested stopping there. Hermione looked at her companion and wondered how far he could tow her if required. Seized by a sudden impulse, she said:--

"I think that I will rest a little, please."

He was close to her in two powerful strokes that sent the water swirling in his wake, as though he had been a porpoise. His eyes gave her a swift, questioning look.

"Take my shoulder," he said. "Do you want to go to the yawl?"

"No," replied Hermione, and laid her hand on the bare, flashing shoulder offered her.

"Paddle a little so as not to get chilled," said Applebo, and started unconcernedly ahead. The tug of the heavy muscles under her hand reminded Hermione of the sensation one gets in laying the palm upon the shoulder of a galloping hunter. There was the same iron contraction, tense and quivering, to be followed by the quick relaxation, the whole evenly spaced and rhythmic as the throb of an engine. It seemed impossible that the splendid, human machine could ever tire. For several minutes she clung, resting and revelling also in the sense of being borne onward without effort. But she was not actually fatigued, and presently released her hold.

"Rested...?" he asked, looking back.

"Quite."

"Good for the rest of the voyage?"

"Yes ... and if I am not, you are. Why did you never go in for athletics?"

"They do not interest me. Games always made me feel like a performing lion."

It occurred to Hermione that they must have made him rather look like one also.

"Football?" she asked.

"I tried it ... but I used to get thinking and forget to play. Besides, I do not like to get banged about ... that is, merely for vanity. If it were to get something I wanted, it would be different."

Hermione did not reply. She watched him curiously as he lounged along. Applebo looked back and smiled. His eyes reflected the swirling green; his hair was the colour of the golden-brown sea-weed and suggested this substance as one sees it trailing from a rock in a clear tide-way. He looked more than ever like a Triton, thought the girl. All he needed was a shell-trumpet and a trident. She wondered if so pagan a creature could possess the elements of real, human feeling. At least, she confessed a little ruefully, he could arouse them!

She herself seemed to be imbued with an unnatural strength. Her long, athletic limbs smote the water with unflagging vigour ... more than that, with an exhilaration.

Just what might have been the reaction from this physical exertion had she swum the whole course, one cannot say, for the last third was destined to be uncompleted. Applebo's trained ear, buried in the brine, caught the rattle of boat-falls and the whine of sheaves, and he raised his dripping head to stare toward the _Shark_.

"Rest..." said he to Hermione. "Here comes your gig. They have sighted us. It's just as well; you might have got overtired."

"Bother!" said Hermione. "Now you will see me catch it from Uncle Chris." She looked in Applebo's face, which was close to hers, and laughed. Then her blue eyes opened very wide.

"What's the matter?" she cried. "You look frightened to death!"

"Do I? Put your hand on my shoulder and rest..." Hermione thought that his voice had an odd, strained note. She took his shoulder, then looked at him curiously. The poet's face, naturally a little pallid already from the immersion, had suddenly become of a sickly, bleached-out pallor, which suggested the belly of a dead fish. Hermione was seized by a sudden alarm.

"Are you tired...?" she asked, and loosed her hold of his shoulder.

Applebo gave a rather forced laugh. The colour began to return again. Then, just as Hermione expected, he assumed his sleepy, blinking expression.

"What _was_ it?" Hermione demanded.

"A little cramp in the sole of the foot. It's gone now. Did you never have one?" He reached for her hand, and placed it on his shoulder again. "They are very painful ... but not dangerous," said he.

Their faces were very close, each to the other. Hermione looked at him questioningly. The poet smiled, and something in the flash of the strong, even teeth set Hermione's heart to thumping in the same undisciplined manner that she had previously experienced on the shore. Applebo pushed the wet hair back from his forehead. As Hermione looked at him, his amber eyes seemed to darken.

"This is 'good-bye'..." he said.

"It is your own fault."

"No ... my misfortune. There are reasons ... besides the silly ones I have given you. This is good-bye."

Hermione was conscious of a sudden fatigue. It was as though she had been under the effect of a stimulant which was suddenly withdrawn. The chill of the water struck suddenly through her. Applebo saw the light fade from the deep, violet eyes, and the sweet mouth droop a little at the corners.

"I'm so tired..." said Hermione, in a plaintive little voice.

He took her free hand and placed it on his other shoulder. Both were slowly treading water, though depending more for buoyancy on their splendid young lungs, trained to the exercise. The boat was coming on rapidly, not over three hundred yards away.

Their eyes met and clung for an instant. Those of the poet were like aquamarines, but in Hermione's there was a mistiness not of the sea. They faltered, dropped, then raised to his as if drawn by some subtle force.

"Good-bye..." said the poet.

"Good-bye ... and ... and thank you very much for ... for your kindness..."

She paused, startled at a sudden clear flame, the same amber light that had been in the yellow eyes when Applebo had turned to her after flinging to earth the game-keeper.

"You darling...!" cried the deep, throaty voice, and before Hermione knew what was happening, she felt herself drawn closely to him, and a pair of wet, salty lips were crushed for the instant against her own. Her head fell back; her eyes closed; the water swirled about her ears. Then she felt two strong arms supporting her beneath the shoulders, raising her bodily from the jealous grip of the sea. Blindly she took a stroke or two, then looked dazedly at the poet.

"You ... you kissed me..."

"Yes, Cécile ... it was only good-bye."

Hermione could find nothing to say, but indeed there was no time. Up crashed the gig under the powerful strokes of the crew. Heldstrom's anxious eyes had noted the drooping of the red-coiffed head, and his thunderous, "Pull, you lubbers ... pull!" reached the swimmers from a distance. Fortunately, the kiss could not be observed, the two heads having been directly in line during this indiscreet performance.

The boat foamed alongside. "Vat's dis ... vat's dis?" cried Heldstrom. He leaned over the gunnel and lifted Hermione aboard, when she sank down on a thwart, a limp, dejected mermaid, gazing mutely at the poet. "Vere is your boat?" demanded Heldstrom. "Vat you mean, svimmin' ar'round in der vater mit dis feller...?"

He turned to glare at Applebo ... and his jaw dropped. Hermione saw him pass his hand across his eyes in a dazed sort of way. The poet blinked back at him inscrutably, but it struck Hermione that his face was very white, and she wondered if he had the cramp in his foot again.

"You vas ... der Pilot-vish...?" said Heldstrom, in an odd, tremulous voice.

"I am Mr. Applebo," answered the poet, in his silky bass. "The game-keeper yonder confiscated Miss Bell's boat. He sneaked around and swiped it. You had better get her aboard before she takes a chill."

Heldstrom was still staring in the same dazed, bewildered way.

"Vere haf I seen you...?" he demanded.

"_Have_ you seen me...?" retorted Applebo. "I don't remember you."

Heldstrom seemed to recover himself with an effort.

"You comin' mit us?" he asked of Applebo.

"No, thanks. I am not tired. I will swim to my yawl."

"You won't take a cramp...?" cried Hermione.

"Oh, no. That will not return. Good-bye ... and I hope you will be none the worse for your long swim."

"Good-bye..." said Hermione, faintly, and added, with the slightest catch in her voice, "and I'm not Cécile ... I'm Hermione!"

But, alas! these words were lost to the Pilot-fish, whose yellow head was buried with his long, powerful overhanded stroke.