Well, it was his first comradeship, and it happened to be an extraordinarily perfect one. It was so very blessed that, to use the words of Mrs. Paradigm (she was the lady with the lorgnon), he went crazy over it. And perhaps if you had known Brassid’s Sea-Lady, you would not have wondered—you might have commended him for going crazy. You remember that she had the eyes of Brassid’s blessed mother.
“I never hoped to see them on earth again,” he said to the face in the mirror.
Oh, she was rich and splendid and fragrant and melodious—I am using Brassid’s book of adjectives—and altogether more lovely in every detail of herself than any one else on earth! And he had constantly the ecstatic feeling that he had discovered her, really; but he never did. For the Sea-Lady was unlike any one he had ever known. He literally knew that she was wonderful in every way that a lover could wish a sweetheart to be wonderful, yet there was not a single admission to go upon. Whenever she caught herself showing Brassid her heart,—and she would have been fond of showing this to Brassid if he had been a woman, perhaps,—she went to cover—and asked him to swim! And I am glad to think that that is the only reason he never saw her heart—never really discovered her.
Until that last day—that second time the eyes said, “Too late!”
And of that I am now to tell you.
III
SHE MAY HAVE HAD BROTHERS
“By Jove!” said Brassid, that day, as he watched her conquest of the choppy waves, “you are something nautical! I do believe that your ancestors wore scales!”
“Oh, Brassid! Thank you! Think of having such a crest as that! Eight carp gules! And the nearest I can come to it is the whaler! Brassid, in the sea I almost love you! And when you really begin to ‘court’ me and feel that you must propose, do it in the water, to the diapason of the waves, in the sight and hearing of my scaly relatives!”
“Hanged if I do!” said Brassid. “You have got to hear that; but it will be in your own house.”
“In evening dress?”