“Where will you paint me?” she asked. “Here, against the sky. It's the color of your eyes. We're going to be friends--is it so?” He stepped aside. “Then, little English girl, good-night.” As she passed under the broken archway, she turned and waved. His blue eyes still followed her through the yellow twilight. Down through the hunchback town she went. Its streets were deformed, steeply descending, scarcely more than a yard wide. It was eloquent with memories of unrecorded fights, in which a handful had held Porto Venere against armies. Beneath its close-packed roofs it was already night. Before little shrines in the walls candles glistened. Sailor-men, with gaudy sashes round their waists, bowed their heads and crossed themselves reverently as they passed. In crooked doorways mothers sat suckling their babies--madonnas with the oval faces and kind eyes that Raphael loved to paint. To them the mystery of love was divulged; many of them no older than Kay. After her great fear she was strangely elated. She had seen admiration in a man's eyes. “Why should you want to paint me?” She could hear his deep voice replying, “Because you are beautiful.” Then came the wistful knowledge of life's brevity, “What is beautiful dies.” She had never thought of that--that she and Harry and Peter, and all this world which was hers to-day must die. The old town with its defaced magnificence, its battered heraldry, its generations of lover-adventurers who had left not even their names behind them--everything reminded her, “What is beautiful dies.” She was consumed with a desire she had never known before--to experience the rage of life. Why was it? What had made her waken? Was it contact with a primitive and virile personality? She had gained a new understanding of manhood. Would Harry be like that, if he lived to-day as though it were a thousand years ago? She stepped into the boat, curling herself in the prow among nets where she would be out of the way of the sail. Darkness was stealing across the sky, a monstrous shadow-bird whose wings roofed in the gulf from shore to shore. The sail began to bulge; the boat lay over on its side. Outlines of wooded hills grew vague. To the north Spezia lay, a blazing jewel. At the mast-heads of anchored men-of-war lanterns twinkled faintly. She trailed her hand, watching how the water ran phosphorescent through her fingers. A fisher-boat crept out of the dusk. A guitar was being played. A man's voice and a girl's, singing full-throatedly! They faded voluptuously into silence. “Because you are beautiful.” Her young heart beat flutteringly. Had others thought it and been afraid to tell her? She leant back her head; stars gazed down on her, approvingly and placid-eyed. All sounds and sights were touched with poetry. The whole of life before her! Peter and Harry waiting! So much of youth to spend; so many choices! Yet, only one choice--Peter. A voice hailed her. “Hulloa! Is that you, Kay?”