gh, as matter of fact, I made a very fair meal when,
Granger's suitcase not having gone, in his coat and some other man's
trousers, I was finally fit for the amenities. Alison did not come
down to dinner, so it was clear she would not go over to the club-house
dance. I pled my injured arm and a ficticious, vaguely located sprain
from the wreck, as an excuse for remaining at home. Sam regaled the
table with accounts of my distrust of women, my one love affair--with
Dorothy; to which I responded, as was expected, that only my failure
there had kept me single all these years, and that if Sam should be
mysteriously missing during the bathing hour to-morrow, and so on.

And when the endless meal was over, and yards of white veils had been
tied over pounds of hair--or is it, too, bought by the yard?--and some
eight ensembles with their abject complements had been packed into three
automobiles and a trap, I drew a long breath and faced about. I had
just then only one object in life--to find Alison, to assure her of my
absolute faith and confidence in her, and to offer my help and my poor
self, if she would let me, in her service.

She was not easy to find. I searched the lower floor, the verandas and
the grounds, circumspectly. Then I ran into a little English girl who
turned out to be her maid, and who also was searching. She was concerned
because her mistress had had no dinner, and because the tray of food she
carried would soon be cold. I took the tray from her, on the glimpse of
something white on the shore, and that was how I met the Girl again.

She was sitting on an over-turned boat, her chin in her hands, staring
out to sea. The soft tide of the bay lapped almost at her feet, and the
draperies of her white gown melted hazily into the sands. She looked
like a wraith, a despondent phantom of the sea, although the adjective
is redundant. Nobody ever thinks of a cheerful phantom. Strangely
enough, considering her evident sadness, she was whistling softly to
herself, over and over, some dreary little minor air that sounded like
a Bohemian dirge. She glanced up quickly when I made a misstep and my
dishes jingled. All considered, the tray was out of the picture: the
sea, the misty starlight, the girl, with her beauty--even the sad little
whistle that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though it
fought against the odds of a trembling lip. And then I came, accompanied
by a tray of little silver dishes that jingled