“Yes,” said John. “Then we both saw the light creeping over the sea like a monstrous ghost. And it all lay so pallid and still,--did n't it?--as if it were a sea in a land of death. And then a cheeky little thrush began to twitter.” “I heard the thrush,” replied John. “He said, 'Any old thing! Any old thing!' ” He mimicked the bird's note. Stella laughed. “That's just what he said--as though a sea in a land of death or the English Channel was all the same to him. I suppose it was.” “It must be good to be a thrush,” said Risca. “There 's a _je m'en fich'isme_ about his philosophy which must be very consoling.” “I know what that is in English,” cried Stellamaris. “It is 'don't-care-a-damativeness.' “ Her lips rounded roguishly over the naughty syllable. “Where did you learn that?” “Walter told me.” “Walter must be clapped into irons, and fed on bread and water, and seriously spoken to.” Unconsciously he had drifted into his usual manner of speech with her. She laughed with a child's easy gaiety. “It's delightful to be wicked, is n't it?” “Why?” he asked. “It must be such an adventure. It must make you hold your breath and your heart beat.” John wondered grimly whether a certain doer of wickedness had felt this ecstatic rapture. She, too, must have seen the gray dawn, but creeping through prison-bars into her cell. God of Inscrutability! Was it possible that these two co-watchers of the dawn, both so dominant in his life, were of the same race of beings? If the one was a woman born of woman, what in the name of mystery was Stellamaris? “Don't look so grave, Great High Belovedest,” she said, squeezing a finger. “I only spoke in fun. It must really be horrid to be wicked. When I was little I had a book about Cruel Frederick--I think it belonged to grandmama. It had awful pictures, and there were rhymes-- He tore the wings off little flies, And then poked out their little eyes. And there was a picture of his doing so. I used to think him a detestable boy. It made me unhappy and kept me awake when I was quite small, but now I know it's all nonsense. People don't do such things, do they?” Risca twisted his glum face into a smile, remembering the Unwritten Law. “Of course not, Stellamaris,” said he. “Cruel Frederick is just as much of a mythical personage as the Giant Fee-fo-fum, who said: I smell the blood of an Englishman, And be he alive or be he dead, I 'll grind his bones to make my bread.” “Why do people frighten children with stories of ogres and wicked fairies and all the rest of it, when the real world they live in is so beautiful?” “Pure cussedness,” answered John, unable otherwise to give a satisfactory explanation. “Cussedness is silly,” said Stellamaris. There was a little pause. Then she put both her hands on his and pressed it.