"Is she a sea goddess? She's followed by fish—"
"I think she might be Astarte herself. One book said that fish were sacred to Astarte. If so, this cave, opening under the sea, might have been used as her temple. Come and sit by the entrance."
For our comfort I brought an armful of the sheepskins. Our happiness slowly increased, why we could not tell. When I opened my packet of lunch, the food's delicious taste was out of all proportion to its plainness. Sophia's "surprise" was a big piece of fruitcake marvelously spiced, and it proved of perfect affinity to the golden wine. Wine and cake were necessary adjuncts to all important ceremonies and celebrations, Sophia told me, and had been so this thousand years.
"What shall we celebrate today?" I asked.
"My coming here—if you will."
"You know I do that."
"You don't know that I barely made it. Papa asked me to do something else. I got out of it only with a lie. I don't know when I can come again—"
I did not answer except to draw her into my arms. For a long, blissful moment she let me kiss her lips, then her breathing quickened, her mouth moved against mine half in protest, half, it seemed, in waking hunger, and breaking the lock of my arms, she sat up.
"We can't do that," she told me.
"You'll have to tell me why, because I don't know."
"I thought we could. When I left you yesterday, I intended to let you make love to me today—as far as was safe. I wanted you to treat me as you would treat an American girl you were paying court to. But no part of it is safe. I should have known it."
"Why do you seek safety? If you insist on that, you can never go anywhere or do anything."
"Then I'll put it another way. I've got to keep the way open to go somewhere else—in a very short time—and do something else. I wanted a day of freedom before I did so. Another day I should say— I had never felt as free as yesterday—perhaps not even when I was alone on Bodmin moor. But wanting that doesn't mean I don't want the other—what's in store for me. I do. I'm sure of it. But just once I wanted to do something that Papa didn't decide for me to do—that I wanted to do and he, if he knew it, would not permit. And when you're gone—after you've sailed away on the Vindictive—I'm going to tell him."
"Why not tell him tonight?"
Her eyes searched mine in amazement, then she gave a rueful smile.
"You say that because you don't know him."
"I know his name and how he looks. I didn't ask anyone—just a little conversation about the bigwigs on the island brought it forth. I know that he refused to meet Beau Brummell. I know he carries a stick instead of a sword—as though he didn't need a sword. You see, that gives me a kind of picture."
Her eyes had rounded as she spoke. "A very good picture. And you still—"
"Yes, because if you tell him, I'll have a better chance of seeing you, not just once more—twice more at the most—but as many times as you like. If he found it out himself—as he surely will on such a thickly populated island, and you so prominent and so beautiful— he'd have the advantage. If you tell him tonight, you'll have the advantage."
"Do you suppose a man so haut that he refused to meet Beau Brummell would let me receive attentions from an American second mate who rose from the tar bucket?"
"I don't know. I wouldn't think it would be as easy to forbid you to as you might think. I heard he commanded a sloop-of-war when he was twenty-four. If he's that clever."
"He's more than clever." Sophia had interrupted me with a strange eagerness. "Many officers have told me he's the most brilliant tactician in the Royal Navy."
"Then I don't think he'd forbid you to receive me."
"I wonder. He's always surprising me. Let me tell you the rest. He had a great love affair before he met Mama. The lady was the estranged wife of an aging nobleman, and they lived together in Italy for two years. After that she broke off with Papa—I don't know why—and he insisted on taking Dick. So I always believed that my mother—beautiful and highborn though she was—was his second choice. I have the strangest feeling that she believed it too, the little while she lived.
"Papa had taken her to London; after her death I lived with my grandmother in Cornwall," Sophia went on. "I saw Papa hardly once a year. He would put his ship into Plymouth and come up to old Celtburrow—that was the name of my mother's home—in a great coach. He was a small man, always magnificently dressed and powdered. He terrified the coachmen and—you won't believe this—made the horses tremble and sweat. He walked about—I was going to say like an eagle, but eagles don't walk gracefully—more like a phoenix just come out of the ashes. But he told me I needn't be afraid of him —I was his daughter, one of his very blood, and look what he had brought me—always a wonderful gift, and one that I had yearned for without letting anyone know. When I was old enough, he would take me to his house in London and choose a beautiful young nobleman for me to marry."
She paused. "Did he?" I asked.
"It amounted to that. The war kept him at sea until he got shore duty here, then he sent for me. The man he chose for me to marry is not quite a nobleman—he's a younger brother of a new baron—but he looks like the statue of Hermes come to life."
"Do you love him?"
"Harvey? I would if I'd picked him myself—or he had picked me."
"It's a curious thing, I reckon—but I wasn't asking about him. I was asking whether you love Sir Godwine Tarlton? I take it that's who he is to you, more than your pa."
"It is a curious thing. And how do you hit upon truths like that? No, I don't think I love my father. If not, it's because he doesn't love me! I wanted him to, for Sir Godwine Tarlton to-nothing on earth could be so flattering-but I think he never loved anyone but Isabel, Countess of Harkness, and maybe his son by her, and the Our Eliza, his first ship."
"It's human for a captain to love his first ship."
"Papa's love was more than human."
"Did he name her after the Countess Isabel? Both are forms of Elizabeth."
"No, he commanded Our Eliza in '81 and lived with Isabel between '82 and '83." She paused, glancing away. "I forgot something. There's another woman in his life now."
The thought came to me that Sophia had forgotten on purpose.
"A girl, I should say. She's hardly older than I. I believe she's a great beauty, although without name or wealth. She came from the Isle of Jersey. Papa found her two years ago at Brighton. I-I believe he's married her."
"Don't you know?"
"He hasn't told me so. But I heard she's lately gone to Celtburrow, my mother's old home."
There was a look in her eyes that made me change the subject. "Did you promise Harvey you'd marry him?" I asked.
"No, but Papa promised I would, which comes to the same thing."
I looked at my watch. "Your two hours are up."
"Did you think I meant that?"
"I don't know. You said it."
"I did mean it, but I'm not going to keep it. You said you'd been lonely. I've been awfully lonely, too. If you want me to go back into your arms "
I held them out to her and she lay in my lap, her breast against mine. Her mouth was close and enough of my kisses took away its strange crook and touching strain, so that it could smile as quickly and wholly as a child's. It came to meet with mine, and for a while we asked no bliss greater than their making free. But there rose within us a hunger that these lovely passages could not satisfy. It had been waiting long in both of us, and there was nothing here to cry it down. There was only silence and solitude, the sense of being hidden from the world-safe from its dangers, free of its rules, sealed off by the very sea. The water in the pool at our feet, just now brimful of the hot June sunlight, gave off a gentle warmth. Its strange lights shone on our faces, gracing them in each other's sight and filling our eyes with guilty yearnings.