"I--it seems so----"
"O-h!" Flushed, excited, laughing, she clasped her hands under her chin and gazed at him.
"To think," she said softly, "that you believed me to be a real siren, and that my beauty and my singing actually did lure you to my rock! Isn't it exciting?"
He looked at her, then turned red:
"Yes, it is," he said.
Hands still clasped together tightly beneath her rounded chin, she surveyed him with intense interest. He was at a disadvantage; the sleek, half-drowned appearance which a man has who emerges from a swim does not exhibit him at his best.
But he had a deeper interest for Flavilla; her melody and loveliness had actually lured him across the water to the peril of her rocks; this human being, this man creature, seemed to be, in a sense, hers.
"Please fix your hair," she said, handing him her comb and mirror.
"My hair?"
"Certainly. I want to look at you."