“Can you?” she laughed.
“A little,” he answered—more carefully now.
“Come!”
After that she admitted Brassid to a precarious intimacy, based upon swimming. In the sea she was everything Brassid could wish. On the land she was not.
“She’s like a fish out of water,” jested the lady who took snuff.
“Do not be discouraged,” shouted she of the pepper-box. “I do not think she knows yet that you’re courting her.”
All the ladies cackled.
“Who said I was courting her?” demanded Brassid, with ferocity.
The ladies laughed again. And when Miss Princeps came down they surrounded her and told her Brassid’s delightful joke.
“I’ve warned him,” said one, “that you’re a siren—one of those ladies who—”