and from her long, clean limbs her woolen dress was whipped, rippling.
The sun had gleamed suddenly, and under the shaft of brightness her hair
shone back a golden answer. Her eyes, hardly raised to those of the tall
Scotchman, were wide, gray, and level--the eyes of Pallas Athene; her
features, too, were goddess-like. One hand upon the bulwarks, she seemed,
even as she listened, to be poised for flight, balancing to the sway of
the ship.

Stefan exhaled a great breath of joy. There was something beautiful upon
the ship, after all. He found and lit a cigarette, and squaring his
shoulders to the deckhouse wall, leaned back the more comfortably to
indulge what he took to be his chief mission--the art of perceiving
beauty.

The girl listened in silence till the Scotchman had finished speaking,
and replied briefly and quietly, inclining her head. The Scot, jotting
something in a pocket notebook, left her with an air of elation, and she
turned again to the children. One, a toddler, was picking at her skirt.
She bent toward him a smile which gave Stefan almost a stab of
satisfaction, it was so gravely sweet, so fitted to her person. She
stooped lower to speak to the baby, and the artist saw the free, rhythmic
motion which meant developed, and untrammeled muscles. Presently the
children, wriggling with joy, squatted in a circle, and the girl sank to
the deck in their midst with one quick and easy movement, curling her
feet under her. There proceeded an absurd game, involving a slipper and
much squealing, whose intricacies she directed with unruffled ease.

Suddenly the wind puffed the hat of one of the small boys from his head,
carrying it high above their reach. In an instant the girl was up,
springing to her feet unaided by hand or knee. Reaching out, she caught