He glanced at his whole handsome maturity, the firm plating of his
breasts, the full thighs, creatures proud in themselves. Only he was
marred by the long raw scratch, which he regretted deeply.

'If I was giving her myself, I wouldn't want that blemish on me,' he
thought.

He wiped the blood from the wound. It was nothing.

'She thinks ten thousand times more of that little pool, with a bit of
pink anemone and some yellow weed, than of me. But, by Jove! I'd rather
see her shoulders and breast than all heaven and earth put together
could show.... Why doesn't she like me?' he thought as he dressed. It
was his physical self thinking.

After dabbling his feet in a warm pool, he returned home. Helena was in
the dining-room arranging a bowl of purple pansies. She looked up at him
rather heavily as he stood radiant on the threshold. He put her at her
ease. It was a gay, handsome boy she had to meet, not a man, strange and
insistent. She smiled on him with tender dignity.

'You have bathed?' she said, smiling, and looking at his damp, ruffled
black hair. She shrank from his eyes, but he was quite unconscious.

'You have not bathed!' he said; then bent to kiss her. She smelt the
brine in his hair.

'No; I bathe later,' she replied. 'But what--'