being free of the navy, he went to Peru."

'"Twas love at first sight then with that young Peruvian girl on the
beach?"

"No, I don't think so--not quite that. Even at that age Cogan could not
fall in love with curves and color alone. At any rate, he put out to
sea; and the beauty of the little Peruvian girl was with him in many a
night-watch. Under the stars he could shut his eyes and see her--the
flashing teeth as she grimaced up at the horrified nurse, and the eyes
still rioting after the curved lips were closed. And yet it was not her
beauty. A hundred rosy-marbled nymphs could have paraded the beach in a
thousand silvery dawns and, once out of sight, his heart never quicken
whatever it was--the innocence, the breathing innocence of her, it may
have been that. And yet there was something more. There must have been.
He gave it up, but he knew that if he had been born a girl he, too,
would want to paddle in the sea at dawn."

"A sort of poet?" suggested the passenger.

Kieran shot a side glance at the passenger. "H-m-m--a good thing he
didn't know it if he was. He was irresponsible enough without having
that excuse. If he thought then that it was poetry in him which kept him
hopping about the world, he'd have been no good at all. He did enough
dreaming as it was. It was probably only the discipline of a warship,
of having to do a daily stint, that kept him from loafing all his time
away, for, as maybe I've said, a power used to take hold of him at times
and swing him. An idea would come to him and he'd follow it like a guide
to heaven.