To the girl, with her wet hair all around her and her face of baby-like innocence, it only meant that the sun shone more brightly and the sea was more blue for the coming of her preux chevalier.  And she sang, without knowing why.

To the man it meant the sudden, primal tumult of all the deepest forces of his nature; it meant the awakening of his soul, the birth of his manhood.

He was young, barely twenty-two.  Very early Ambition had called to him, and he had followed with a single heart.  He had never greatly cared for social pleasures; he had been too absorbed to enjoy them.  But now—­in a single moment—­Ambition was dethroned.  At the time, though his eyes were open, he scarcely realized that the old supremacy had passed.  Only long afterwards did he ask himself if the death-knell of his success had begun to toll on that golden morning; because a man cannot serve two masters.

“A penny for your thoughts!” laughed the elf in the stern, and he came to himself to wonder how old she was.  “No, never mind!” she added.  “I daresay they are not worth it, and I couldn’t pay if they were.”

Her eyes dwelt approvingly upon him as, with sleeves rolled above his elbows, he began to pull at the oars.  He was certainly very handsome.  She wondered that she had not noticed it before.

“Mademoiselle will not swim so far again all alone?” he suggested gently, after a few steady strokes.

She looked at him frowningly.  There was no faintest tinge of dignity about her, only the careless effrontery of childhood and the grace that is childhood’s heritage.

“I am going to swim as far as the skyline some day,” she announced lightly, “and look over the edge of the world.”

“Mais, mademoiselle—­”

She held up an imperious hand.  “That is one of the things you are not allowed to say.  You are never to talk French to me.  It is holiday-time when I am with you, and I never talk French in the holidays, except to Mademoiselle, who won’t listen to English.  And won’t you call me Chris?  Everyone else does.”

“Chris?” he repeated after her very softly, his eyes upon her, tenderly indulgent.  “Ah! let it be Christine.  I may call you that?”

“Of course,” she returned practically.  “My actual name is Christina, but that’s a detail.  You can call me Christine if you like it best.”

“I have another name for you,” he said, with slight hesitation.

“Have you?” she asked with interest.  “What is it?  Do tell me!”

But he still hesitated.  “It will not vex you?  No?”

She flashed him her merriest smile.  “Of course not.  Why should it?”

He smiled back upon her, but there was the light of something deeper than mirth in his eyes.  “I call you my bird of Paradise,” he said.

“How pretty!” said Chris.  “Quite poetical, preux chevalier!  You may go on calling me that if you like, but it’s too long for general use.  And what shall I call you?  Tell me your Christian name.”