ere enlarging
every ripple and edging the deep purple-blue with yellow light. Except
for a fishing dory chunking out to its day's work, Ben had the sea
and land to himself. He felt as if they were all his own, and, for
a socialist, was guilty of the sin of pride of possession. He was
enjoying himself so much that it was a long time before he turned to
swim back.

He was swimming with his head under water most of the time so that he
did not at once notice that a raft he had passed on his way out was
now occupied. As soon as he did see it his head came up. It was a
female figure, and even from a distance he could see that she was
unconscious of his presence and felt quite as sure of having the world
to herself as he was. She was sitting on the edge of the raft, kicking
a pair of the prettiest legs in the world in and out of the water.
They were clad in the thinnest of blue-silk stockings, the same in
which a few minutes before she had been dancing, but not being able
to find any others in her bathhouse, she had just kept them on,
recklessly ignoring the inevitable problem of what she should wear
home. She was leaning back on her straightened arms, with her head
back, looking up into the sky and softly whistling to herself. Ben saw
in a second that she was the girl of the silver turban.

He stole nearer and nearer, cutting silently through the water,
and then, when he had looked his fill, he put his head down again,
splashed a little, and did not look up until his hand was on the raft,
when he allowed an expression of calm surprise to appear on his face.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "Is this a private raft?"

The young lady, who had had plenty of time since the splash to
arrange her countenance, looked at him with a blank coldness, and then
suddenly smiled.

"I thought it was a private world," she replied.

"It's certainly a very agreeable one," said Ben, climbing on the raft.
"And what I like particularly about it is the fact that no one is
alive but you and me. Newport appears to be a city of the dead."

"It always was," she answered, contemptuously.

"Oh, come. Not an hour ago you were dancing in blue and green and a
silver turban at a party over there," and he waved his hand in the
direction from which he had come.

"Did you think it was a good ball?"

"I enjoyed it," he answered, truthfully.

Her face fell. "How very disappointing," she said. "I didn't see you
there."

"Disappointing that you did not