“And be washed away?” suggested Courteney.

“Oh no,” she assured him confidently.  “That won’t happen.  I’m not nearly so young as I look.  I only dress like this when I want to enjoy myself.  Rosa Mundi says”—­her eyes were suddenly merry—­“that I’m not respectable.  Now, don’t you think that sounds rather funny?”

“From her—­yes,” said Courteney.

“You don’t like her?” The shrewd curiosity of a child who desires understanding upon a forbidden subject was in the question.

The man evaded it.  “I have never seen her except in the limelight.”

“And you didn’t like her—­then?” Keen disappointment sounded in her voice.

His heart smote him.  The child was young, though possibly not so young as she looked.  She had her ideals, and they would be shattered soon enough without any help from him.

With a brief laugh he turned aside, dismissing the subject.  “That form of entertainment doesn’t appeal to me much,” he said.  “Now it’s your turn to tell me something.  I have been wondering about the colour of that sea.  Would you call it blue—­or purple?”

She looked, and again the mystery was in her face.  For a moment she did not speak.  Then, “It is violet,” she said—­“the colour of Rosa Mundi’s eyes.”

Ere the frown had died from his face she was gone, pattering lightly over the sand, flitting like a day-dream into the blinding sunshine that seemed to drop a veil behind her, leaving him to his thoughts.

* * * * *

Randal Courteney was an old and favoured guest at the Hurley Bay Hotel.  From his own particular corner of the great dining-room he was accustomed to look out upon the world that came and went.  Frequently when he was there the place was almost deserted, and always he had been treated as the visitor of most importance.  But to-night, for the first time, he found himself supplanted.  Someone of more importance was staying in the hotel, someone who had attracted crowds, whose popularity amounted almost to idolatry.

The hotel was full, but Courteney, despite his far-reaching fame, was almost entirely overlooked.  News had spread that the wonderful Australian dancer was to perform at the Pier Pavilion at the end of the week, and the crowds had gathered to do her honour.  They were going to strew the Pier with roses on the night of her appearance, and they were watching even now for the first sign of her with all the eager curiosity that marks down any celebrity as fair prey.  Courteney smiled grimly to himself.  How often it had been his lot to evade the lion-hunters!  It was an unspeakable relief to have the general attention thus diverted from himself.  Doubtless Rosa Mundi would revel in it.  It was her role in life, the touchstone of her profession.  Adulation was the very air she breathed.