Desire never bathed until the sun was up, not because she feared the dawn-cold water but because she would not stir the unbroken beauty of its opal tide.  With the first rays of the sun, the spell would break, the waves would dance again, the gulls would soar and dip, the crabs would scuttle across the shining sand, the round wet head of a friendly seal would pop up here and there to say good-morning.  Then, Desire would swim—­far out—­so far that Spence, watching her, would feel his heart contract.  He could not follow her—­yet.  But he never begged her not to take the risk, if risk there were.  Why should she lose one happy thrill in her own joyous strength because he feared?  Better that she should never come back from these long, glorious swims than that he should have held her from them by so much as a gesture.

And she always did come back, glowing, dripping, laughing, her head as sleek as a young seal’s, salt upon her lips and on her wave-whipped cheek.  Spence, whose swims were shorter and more sedate, would usually have breakfast ready.

But upon this particular morning Desire loitered.  Though the smell of bacon was in the air, she sat pensively in the shallows of an outgoing tide and flung shells at the crabs.  She would have told you that she was thinking.  But had she used the word “feeling” she would have been nearer the truth.  And the thing which she obscurely felt was that something had mysteriously altered for the worse in a world which, of late, had shown remarkable promise.  It was a small thing.  She hardly knew what it was.  Merely a sense of dissonance somewhere.

Whatever it was, it had not been there yesterday.  Yesterday morning she had felt no desire to sit in the shallows and throw shells at crabs.  Yesterday morning her mind had been full of that happy inconsequence which feels no need of thought.  Today was different.  Mentally she shook herself with some irritation.  “What is the matter with you?” she asked.  But the self she addressed seemed oddly reluctant.  “Come now,” said Desire, hitting an especially big crab, “out with it!  There’s no use pretending that you don’t know.”  Thus adjured, the self offered one single and sulky word.  The word was “Mary.”  “Oh, nonsense!” said Desire hastily.

But there it was.  She had forced the answer and had to make the best of it.  Her memory trailed back.  Once started, it had small difficulty in tracking her dissatisfaction to its real beginning.  Everything, it reminded her, had been perfect until she and Benis had sat upon the hill in the sunset and talked about Mary.  Something had happened then.  Like a certain ancestress she had coveted the fruit of knowledge and knowledge had been given her.  Not at once—­ Benis had at first been distinctly reluctant—­but by gentle persistence she had won through his cool reserve.  Abruptly and without visible reason, his attitude had changed.  He had said in that drawling voice of his, “You wish me to talk about Mary?” And then, suddenly, he had talked.