For three days the _Windward_ had sailed up and down the coast of Cornwall; for three days the little _Torch_, with all sails set, wheeled round her moorings or followed her flight. Durant had accepted Miss Tancred's invitation to join them in a week's cruise in English waters. He spent his mornings in his own yacht, his afternoons and evenings on board the schooner. The proposal had been a godsend to him in his state of indecision. After his aimless wanderings he was exhilarated by this eager challenge and pursuit, absurdly pitting the speed of his own small craft against the swiftness and strength of the larger vessel. But he enjoyed still more sitting on the rail of the _Windward_ and talking to Frida. There was something infinitely soothing in the society of a woman who knew nothing and cared nothing about his fame. He was not the only guest. Besides Miss Chatterton there was Mr. Manby, a little middle-aged gentleman, who called himself an artist; Miss Manby, a little middle-aged woman, who seemed to be his sister; and two little girls with their hair down their backs, his daughters, Eileen and Ermyntrude Manby. Durant was a good deal alone with Frida, for a stiff breeze had kept the artist and his sister much below, and Georgie and the little girls hardly counted. They were alone now. Frida had smiled as she spoke, a smile of intelligence and reminiscence; and he was irresistibly reminded of the first and last occasion when he had discoursed to her about realities. "And what are you going to do with it?" he asked. "With what? With the reality or the dream?" "With both, with life--now you've got it?" "Why should I do anything with it? Unless you're talking of moral obligations, which would be very tiresome of you." "I'm not thinking of moral obligations." "What were you thinking of, then?" "I was thinking--of you." Frida lay back a little further on her cushion as if she were withdrawing herself somewhat from his scrutiny. She clasped her hands behind her head; her face was uptilted to the sky. His eyes followed her gaze. Over their heads the wind had piled up a great palace of white clouds; under the rifted floors the blue sky ran shallow in a faint milky turquoise, while above, between, beyond those aerial roofs and pinnacles and domes it deepened to _lapis lazuli_, luminous, transparent, light behind color and color behind light. The green earth looked greener under the low-lying shafts of blue and silver; far off, on the sea, the shadows of the clouds lay like the stain of spilt red wine. "Who was the great man?" she asked with apparent irrelevance, "who said that women were incapable of a disinterested passion for nature?"