"I believe he is a good sort," said Desmond, who was above the pettiness of deprecating a possible rival.
"I am sure that you are the very best of good sorts. Now, what are we to do?" she answered.
"Walk along the cliffs, and see the grandest sight in Nature—the eternal war between the ocean and the land," he answered.
And Sylvia Jackson, who was artistic and emotional to an extreme degree, fully agreed with him when she stood on the cliffs that tower over the sea just two miles beyond the town.
A strong wind was blowing from the south, the sun shining through a sky dappled with fleecy broken white cloudlets. The spray sparkled in the bright light before it broke into a rainbow of changing colours. Above the big rollers the cliffs rose in broken perpendicular columns; there was a constant roar in the ears as breaker after breaker hurled itself on the rocks. Sea-birds wheeled about overhead. In the far distance the ocean stretched out, to where a bank of clouds rested on the distant horizon, in slopes and peaks, a perfect copy of snow-clad mountains.
"Don't stand so close to the cliffs!" cried Desmond.
She laughed at him mockingly.
"You need have no fear for me. I am an ethereal spirit, a thing of vapour," she answered.
"I wouldn't dare stand where you are; I should be drawn down. Good heavens!"