"Come along, Cinders! We shall be late for tea." He stood motionless on the sunlit sand and watched her go.
She was limping, but she moved quickly notwithstanding.

Cinders trotted soberly by her side.
As she reached the little _plage_, she turned as if aware of his watching eyes and nonchalantly waved the towel that dangled on her arm.

The sunlight had turned her hair to burnished copper.

It made her for the moment wonderful, and a gleam of swift admiration shot across the Frenchman's face.
"_Merveilleux_!" he whispered to himself, and half-aloud, "Good-bye, little bird of Paradise!" With a courteous gesture of farewell, he turned away.

When he looked again, the child, with her glorious, radiant hair, had passed from sight.
He went back, springing over the rocks, to the Gothic archway that had fired her curiosity.