DAPHNE
"I am grateful to you," she said, wondering at this unwonted sense of being embarrassed. "Perhaps, if you will come some day to the villa for my sister to thank you"— The sentence broke off. "I am Daphne Willis," she said abruptly, and waited.
"And I am Apollo," said the stranger gravely.
"Apollo—what?" asked the girl. Did they use the old names over here?
"Phœbus Apollo," he answered, unsmiling. "Is America so modern that you do not know the older gods?"
"Why do you call me an American?"
A smile flickered across Apollo's lips.
"A certain insight goes with being a god."
Daphne started back and looked at him, but the puzzled scrutiny did not deepen the color of his brown cheek. Suddenly she was aware that the sunlight had faded, leaving shadow under the ilexes and about the fountain on the hill.
19
