It is always disconcerting to a swain, be he sentimentalist or sensualist, to find that his proposals of passion are entertained with hilarity. So it was with Simon when the girl greeted him with a peal of the cheerfulest laughter that ever had rattled about his ears, while she swayed on her shapely legs like a bell-flower to a breeze. So children laugh at their play; so gods laugh at the muddles of mortals, bright, sweet, whole-hearted laughter, brilliant as the songs of birds. "You foolish Bœotian," she said, when a pause in her laughter left her breath to speak, "you do not think I would welcome your wooing?" And once again the musical gusts of merriment shook her, and her eyes danced and her whole body trembled with delight. Simon glowered at her, very red-faced, very sulky, very hot on his purpose. He had overcrowed coy reluctance ere this. "Welcome or no welcome," he cried, "I mean to clip you in my arms. The forest is silent, you are my prize, you shall follow your mother's example." He made a step towards the girl as he spoke, with his face as red as a peony, and stretched out his big, brown hands to seize her white body. To his surprise she made no effort to evade him, and for one wild moment it was pleasure to clasp her soft body close to his; but before he had time to turn his clasp into an embrace he found himself, to his bewilderment, plucked from the ground as if he had been caught in the clutch of a whirlwind, and then in another astonishing instant he realized that the maiden had flung him from her as if his mighty mass of manhood had been no bulkier than a cradled doll, and that he was travelling rapidly through the air towards his mother earth. Then he countered the ground with a prodigious thump that seemed to squelch the breath out of his lungs and to shake every bone and strain every sinew of his body. Sick and dizzy and all of an ache he lay on his back on the grass, rigid as a man in a catalepsy, and staring in unfamiliar terror at the maiden, whose beautiful face was suddenly fierce with anger. "You fool," she cried, "learn that I rule in this forest. I have dealt thus gently with you for this once"--Simon groaned inwardly as she said this, and wondered if he had a whole bone left in his body--"but if you vex me again I shall be tempted to do you some hurt." Simon made an effort to move, and the effort hurt him sorely, and he marvelled at the girl's ideas of gentleness and hurting. The Olympian sternness of Argathona's brow softened a little at the sight of that supine image of misery. "Will you promise to offend no more?" she asked, and Simon cried back at her, speaking from the very core of his heart: "I promise." The dryad's frown faded, her serene calm rekindled. "You will do well to keep your word," she said, merrily, "for my sinews are knit with the vigor of the Age of Gold, and I have no need to fear the children of men."