they met, the two, on the beach, on a long sweep of the ocean shore where snipe were running at the edge of the lacy waves but where there was no other human being within sight or sound of them. they had met, you may say, before—at the lone cove coast guard station, for instance, where mermaid had kissed her father and shaken hands with everybody, including the one or two surviving honorary uncles of her childhood. they had sat them down at the long table over which cap’n smiley still presided, encouraging the art of conversation as one of those social amenities that marked the civilized man. they had eaten heartily[222] of simple and appetizing fare, had joked, laughed, told stories. mermaid had been delighted at the physical transformation in guy. he was broader shouldered, or certainly seemed so, and was obviously heavier, “filled out,” as her father put it. the colour in his cheeks was a thing to wonder at; so was the calm of his eyes. they were still those wild-animal eyes, but the look in them was that of a creature at peace with the world and, for the rest, unafraid. he was, except for the fact of a somewhat wider education, one of them.
but that had not been a meeting. this was their meeting, here on the smooth and endless stretch of hard-packed sand at the ocean’s edge.
they stood side by side, not looking at each other but at the ocean, at the curling, magnificent breakers which the southeast wind was driving in. the sun shone, the air was magic. bird cries reached them, a tiny treble to the bass of the water’s roar.
“out of the ocean you came,” he said. “will you slip away and return into it again some day, i wonder? mermaid! the name is poetry and the story is romance. when you go back, you must look for me. i shall be a wreathed triton, blowing upon a conch shell. i shall be among those who pull the sea god’s chariot while you will be among those who swim in his escort. and we shall be much together. always.”
“you have done it!” she said, exultingly. “you[223] have become a man, and yet you have not lost the child and the poet in you. you are really the guy vanton i first knew, only grown, matured, with the world before you.”
“i have it all yet to conquer,” he told her, half laughing.
“your greatest conquest has been made.”
he reached for her hand, pressed it, and held it.
“guy,” she said, suddenly, “will you marry me?”
she felt his hand tremble. the tremendous tide within her swept on, and in her ears there was a noise like singing. she felt his arm about her, and it was needed. she made out his voice, saying: “mermaid, will you have me? will you—have—me? oh, if you will!”
it was a cry of entreaty, a prayer, a thanksgiving.
she suddenly slipped down onto the sand and quite ridiculously collapsed in a heap. and he was on the sand beside her, folding her to him, murmuring little words that were inaudible and precious. she felt his hair against her cheek and for an instant their strange eyes confronted each other. in his were brown and golden lights; hers were less brilliantly blue, as if the surface reflection were gone, and looking into them it would be possible, almost for the first time, to guess at the depths concealed by their mirror-like quality.
they sat there for a long time while the sun declined slowly through the heavens, a futile effort of the wheeling[224] universe to measure by cycles and hours a moment of eternity.
