Hermione looked at him and nodded, and again there swept through her the warm little tingling which defied the chill of the sea. Quite a new sensation this, and one which Hermione was at a loss to comprehend, for the poet irritated even while he attracted her. He had a most vexing manner of talking to without looking at her. One indifferent glance and his yellow eyes were wandering beyond, anywhere except in her direction. Now, apparently waiting for her to take to the water, he was staring sleepily down the beach, interested apparently in a flock of gulls circling about some stranded object. The warm sunlight smote on his yellow mane and threw soft shadows on the bare, saffron-coloured skin, of the texture of velvet, and glowing richly in the high lights. He splashed a little water on his powerful arms, and the long, clean-cut muscles formed shifting contours to delight a sculptor's eye. A life-sized statue in dull gold looked the poet, beautiful as a demi-god and no more human, for he carried a curious atmosphere of detachment to his surroundings, as though the milieu were alien to him and he might, at any moment, betake himself away to his own place. Even for this lovely mortal maid beside him he seemed to show a polite disinterestedness not usually to be found in his ancient prototypes, if we are to believe the classics. Hermione felt this, and it aroused in her a sudden fierce perversity. Again there came that swift desire to waken him out of his sleepy indifference by a physical violence. There were also the traitorous thrills. "Come on..." she said, with such sharp impatience that the poet turned and blinked at her inquiringly. Hermione's blue eyes flashed, and with a sudden spiteful motion of her hand, she sent a shower of the icy water spraying over him. Applebo gasped, laughed gurglingly, and flung himself forward to swim, Hermione following. Side by side they thrust forward through the clear, cold water. Hermione was swimming prone; the poet lounged along on his side, his head half buried, the floating hair swirling about his ears, his eyes almost closed. To Hermione he looked as though he were asleep and propelled onward by some involuntary mechanism within. For a hundred yards neither of them spoke. Hermione turned on her side, facing Applebo. The thinnest of amber gleams between the double fringe of eyelashes told that he was watching her. "You could swim all day, Cécile..." said he. "What right have you to call me 'Cécile'?" snapped Hermione, tired of the constantly recurring error of identity. "Even if I were..." "I call you 'Cécile' and not 'Miss Bell' because the latter is the conventional name, and I do not know you conventionally ... and never will. Fancy my writing verses to 'Miss Bell'! As we shall never meet, in all probability, after this hour, what does it matter?" Hermione did not reply. The water seemed to strike her with a certain chill. "Don't you want to see me again?"