nakedly, nor allow them to ride her out of hand.

Not so Stefan, who was, as yet unknowingly, experiencing romantic love
for the first time. This girl was the most glorious creature he had ever
known, and the most womanly. Her sex was the very essence of her; she had
no need to wear it like a furbelow. She was utterly different from the
feminine, adroit women he had known; there was something cool and deep
about her like a pool, and withal winged, like the birds that fly over
it. She was marvelous--marvelous! he thought. What a find!

His spirit flung itself, kneeling, to drink at the pool--his imagination
reached out to touch the wings. For the first time in his life he was too
deeply enthralled to question himself or her. He gloried in her openly,
conspicuously.

On the morning of the fifth day they had their first dispute. They were
sitting on the boat deck, aft, watching the wake of the ship as it
twisted like an uncertain white serpent. Stefan was sketching her, as he
had done already several times when he could get her apart from hovering
children--he could not endure being overlooked as he worked. "They chew
gum in my ear, and breathe down my neck," he would explain.

He had almost completed an impression of her head against the sky, with a
flying veil lifting above it, when a shadow fell across the canvas, and
the voice of McEwan blared out a pleased greeting.

"Weel, here ye are!" exclaimed that mountain of tweed, lowering himself
onto a huge iron cleat between which and the bulwarks the two were
sitting cross-legged. "I was speerin' where ye'd both be."