"You will surely teach me to fly?" she said almost as soon as they floated side by side.
"No," he denied in a somewhat uncertain fashion. "This morning I yielded because of your great desire to be the first woman of Palos to take to the air. In that I was not altogether wise. Again I would not dare."
"Yet and you yielded to my desire in the matter of this morning, your excuse should be the same in yielding to me again, no less. Ah, Jason"—her hand crept out and lay upon his arm—"now know I the feeling of a bird when it rises and sings from pure joy, for the first time in my life, and the knowledge thrills me; I would know it again, because—" She broke off with a little, gasping breath.
"Because of what?" Croft turned his head and looked into her pansy-purple eyes.
"Because," said she very slowly, "it is to me as though I was no longer mortal—as though I had in some way left the body—cast off all the weight of the flesh."
"Naia!" Croft stammered. "Thou knowest?" and paused, strangely shaken at the knowledge her words showed.
"Aye—since the last time you called me to you. Come and I shall show you, Jason." She turned and dived.
Croft followed. Down, down, he followed her gleaming form through the clear water. Down, down, until he swam beside it. And then lost, buried deep in its liquid embrace, screened from all observation by the play of the sun upon its surface, she turned still closer to him, and for the first time since old Zud's blunder had brought misunderstanding she offered him her scarlet mouth.
From that kiss man and woman came up gasping almost as to a new birth. Misunderstanding, all barriers of restraint, seemed to have been washed away in the shimmering pool's soft flood. "Ah, Acquor, Acquor," Naia panted, "thou has caught thy little fish at last."
"Fear not, little fish," said Croft in a voice which quivered, "I shall not eat you, but—this time I shall surely hold you fast."