Now Somerset was a strong swimmer. Moderately proficient at all games as a boy and an undergraduate, he had found that swimming was the only sport in which he excelled, and he had cultivated and maintained the art. Oddly enough, the little Princess Ottilie, in spite of her apparent fragility, was also an excellent and fearless swimmer. She had another queer delight for a creature so daintily feminine, the _salle d'armes_, so that the muscles of her young limbs were firm and well ordered. But the sea was her passion. If an additional bond between Somerset and herself were needed it would have been this. Yet, though it is a pleasant thing to swim far away into the loneliness of the sea with the object of one's affections, the conditions do not encourage sustained conversation on subjects of vital interest. On the day when Somerset learned that his little princess was engaged to Bernheim he burned to tell her more than could be spluttered out in ten fathoms of water. So he urged her to an assignation. At half-past ten she joined him at the bottom of the Casino steps. The shingly beach was deserted, but on the terrace above the throng was great, owing to the breathless heat of the night. "Thank Heaven you have come," said he. "Do you know how I have longed for you?" She glanced up wistfully into his face. In her simple cream dress and burnt straw hat adorned with white roses around the brim, she looked very fair and childlike. "You mustn't say such things," she whispered. "They are wrong now. I am engaged to be married." "I won't hear of it," said Somerset. "It is a horrible nightmare--your engagement. Don't you know that I love you? I loved you the first minute I set my eyes on you at Spa." Princess Ottilie sighed, and they walked along the boards behind the bathing-machines, and down the rattling beach to the shelter of a fishing boat, where they sat down, screened from the world with the murmuring sea in front of them. Somerset talked of his love and the hatefulness of Bernheim. The little Princess sighed again. "I have worse news still," she said. "It will pain you. We are going to Paris to-morrow, and then on to Aix-les-Bains. They have just decided. They say the baccarat here is silly, and they might as well play for bon-bons. So we must say good-bye to-night--and it will be good-bye for always." "I will come to Aix-les-Bains," said Somerset. "No--no," she answered quickly. "It would only bring trouble on me and do no good. We must part to-night. Don't you think it hurts me?" "But you must love me," said Somerset. "I do," she said simply, "and that is why it hurts. Now I must be going back." "Ottilie," said Somerset, grasping her hands: "Need you ever go back?" "What do you mean?" he asked.