And he continued to inspect her with increasing annoyance.
The smooth skin, the vivid lips slightly upcurled, the straight delicate nose, the cheeks so smoothly rounded where the dark thick lashes swept their bloom as she looked downward at the water--all this was abstractly beautiful; very lovely, too, the full column of the neck, and the rounded arms guiltless of sunburn or tan.
So unusually white were both neck and arms that Hamil ventured to speak of it, politely, asking her if this was not her first swim that season.
Voice and question roused her from abstraction; she turned toward him, then glanced down at her unstained skin.
"My first swim ?" she repeated; "oh, you mean my arms?
No, I never burn; they change very little." Straightening up she sat looking across the boat at him without visible interest at first, then doubtfully, as though in an effort to say something polite.
"I am really very grateful to you for letting me sit here.

Please don't feel obliged to amuse me during this annoying fog." "Thank you; you _are_ rather difficult to talk to.

But I don't mind trying at judicious intervals," he said, laughing.
She considered him askance.

"If you wish to row in, do so.

I did not mean to keep you here at sea--" "Oh, I belong out here; I'm from the _Ariani_ yonder; you heard her bell in the fog.