"I would like to be smashed up. It would help my verse. If you don't mind, I believe I will transfer my devotion to you. This entails no obligation on your part ... except to read my verses." Hermione stared up at him suspiciously. Applebo was standing as straight as a mast, his fine profile turned to her. Hermione made a little motion as though to rise. If the poet observed it he gave no sign, and she was obliged to scramble to her feet without the aid of the strong grasp which, for some peculiar reason, she craved. Up she sprang, a dark flush on either cheek and her red lips pouting. Hermione was not accustomed to such neglect. Her crimson-turbaned head came a little above the poet's shoulder. Still his eyes evaded her. "I don't know that I am so keen for a cavalier who thinks more of his verse than he does of its object," said she. "That's because you are a flirt," said Applebo. "Really, though, it would be a good moral tonic for you." "To receive love-poems?" "From a man who was in love with you purely in the abstract." "But where's the fun?" "That's so..." Applebo assented, and looked at her with slightly more interest as at one suggesting a new idea. Something in Hermione's eyes seemed to catch his own and hold them. The sleepy lids opened a little wider and a golden flame darted out toward the deep violet ones so close to his own. Inflammable stuff it must have found, yet it did not tarry to set this alight, but coursed on until Hermione felt it tingling through every nerve and fibre. It was quite a new sensation, this, yet carried with it something anciently familiar, so that while startled she was not shocked, but merely confused and rendered slightly incoherent in her thoughts. And then, as though this were not liberty enough, here came Applebo's deep bass, resonant yet soft as the purr of a cat, stealing in to assault her reason through another breach, the auditory one. Hermione, for the second time that day, found her usually stable impulses all adrift. "You are uncommonly lovely," said Applebo. "What a pity that you must be such a coquette. Is Hermione like that?" Hermione stamped her little sandalled foot. "Do you take everything on hearsay?" she snapped. "One would give you credit for more originality." "That is the reason I am so surprised. You do not look ruthless. But then..." He glanced back at the lagoon, "one can never tell. No doubt, it is not your fault. You have probably been horribly spoiled. Most men would want to spoil you." "Would you?" "As long as you were good." "And if I were bad?" There was a short silence. "I think," said Applebo, "that it is time that you were getting back aboard the _Shark_; your people might be anxious." Hermione bit her lips with vexation. She had quite forgotten everything but the poet. "You are quite right," said she, icily. "I will walk with you as far as your boat," said Applebo. CHAPTER V