Part 73

"Oh!" she said, with a quick, indrawn breath, "you are attractive!"

At that he turned becomingly scarlet.

Leaning on one lovely, bare arm, burnished hair clustering against her cheeks, she continued to survey him in delighted approval which sometimes made him squirm inwardly, sometimes almost intoxicated him.

"To think," she murmured, "that I lured you out here!"

"I am thinking about it," he said.

She laid her head on one side, inspecting him with frankest approval.

"I wonder," she said, "what your name is. I am Flavilla Carr."

"Not one of the Carr triplets!"

"Yes--but," she added quickly, "I'm not married. Are you?"

"Oh, no, no, no!" he said hastily. "I'm Henry Kingsbury, of Pebble Point, Northport----"

"Master and owner of the beautiful but uncertain Sappho? Oh, tell me, are you the man who has tipped over so many times in Long Island Sound? Because I--I adore a man who has the pluck to continue to capsize every day or two."

"Then," he said, "you can safely adore me, for I am that yachtsman who has fallen off the Sappho more times than the White Knight fell off his horse."

"I--I do adore you!" she exclaimed impulsively.

"Of course, you d-d-don't mean that," he stammered, striving to smile.

"Yes--almost. Tell me, you--I know you are not like other men! You never have had anything to do with a Destyn-Carr machine, have you?"

"Never!"

"Neither have I.... And so you are not in love--are you?"

"No."

"Neither am I. Oh, I am so glad that you and I have waited, and not become engaged to somebody by machinery.... I wonder whom you are destined for."

"Nobody--by machinery."

She clapped her hands. "Neither am I. It is too stupid, isn't it? I don't want to marry the man I ought to marry. I'd rather take chances with a man who attracts me and who is attracted by me.... There was, in the old days--before everybody married by machinery--something not altogether unworthy in being a siren, wasn't there?... It's perfectly delightful to think of your seeing me out here on the rocks, and then instantly plunging into the waves and tearing a foaming right of way to what might have been destruction!"

Her flushed, excited face between its clustering curls looked straight into his.

"It was destruction," he said. His own voice sounded odd to him. "Utter destruction to my peace of mind," he said again.

"You--don't think that you love me, do you?" she asked. "That would be too--too perfect a climax.... Do you?" she asked curiously.

"I--think so."

"Do--do you know it?" He gazed bravely at her: "Yes."

She flung up both arms joyously, then laughed aloud:

"Oh, the wonder of it! It is too perfect, too beautiful! You really love me? Do you? Are you sure?"