He began to listen for the words. Suddenly he recognized it--one of the loveliest of old English songs. Evidently it had been transmitted from ear to ear until it had acquired the character of a new race of singers.
He progressed from bush to bush. He wasn't going to have anything to do with her, he would have said, but she could sing. He came to a final stop only a few yards away, and watched her through the leaves with burning eyes. She was in her favourite attitude, sitting on her heels, her strong young back curving in to her swaying waist.
Her hair, all unbound, fell around her in shifting masses like smoke. While she sang she combed it with long strokes, holding her head now on this side, now on that, and ever revealing a lovelier pose of her round arms. The half light lent her an unearthly beauty.
The sight was no less affecting than the sound. A great pain filled Sam's breast, and the old inward struggle dragged him back and forth. She was at once so desirable and so hateful in his eyes. It was the cry of bewildered youth: "What right has anything so bad to be beautiful!"
No doubt of her badness occurred to him. Had she not ruined his chances in that country? The old antagonism was there, the readiness to believe ill of the other sex that is born of mutual fear. She had become the immemorial siren in Sam's eyes, and he was fighting to save his soul. But she was beautiful enough to make a man wish to be damned.
She came to the end of her song, and presently started another, a more rollicking air, but still charged with wistfulness. Who had taught her those hushed, thrilling tones? Sam recognized this air, too, and thought of the mother who had sung it to him years ago.
It was "Twickenham Ferry." Why that of all songs? he wondered rebelliously. It was not fair that she should be armed thus to seek out the weakest joints in his armour.
The desire to stop the song with his own mouth became more than he could bear. The struggle was almost over when she paused and bent her head to listen, and looked up and down the beach.
"She's just trying to bring you to her!" Sam told himself, aghast. "That's why her hair is down and all. And you're falling for it, you fool!"
He turned and fled back around the beach.