for miles and miles
till it too was no more identity but only sea, receiving the sun,
without thought, without limbs, without pain. He sprinted with the last
breath he had in him to annihilation in that light lustrous firmament.
Then his flung-out hand struck something firm and smooth. With the
momentary twinge of a jarred toe, he stopped in the middle of a stroke,
grabbed at the firm thing unthinkingly, felt it slip away from him, trod
water and came up gasping.

"Oh, I'm _horribly_ sorry!" Gurgle and choke at water gone the wrong
way. "Honestly--what a dumb-bell trick! but I didn't see you at _all_
and with the whole Sound to swim in I thought I was safe--"

He rubbed the water out of his eyes. A woman in a blue cap. Pretty,
too--not one of the pretty kind that look like drenched paper-dolls in
swimming.

"Don't apologize--it's all my fault, really. I should have heard you
coming, I suppose, but I was floating and my ears were under water--and
this cap! You did scare me a little, though; I didn't know there was
anyone else in miles--"

She smiled frankly. Ted got another look at her and decided that pretty
was hardly right. Beautiful, perhaps, but you couldn't tell with her
hair that way under her cap.

"You're Mr. Billett, aren't you? Louise said last night that her brother
was bringing a friend over Sunday. She also said that she'd introduce
us--but we seem to have done that."

"Rather. Introduction by drowning. The latest cleverness in Newport
circles--see 'Mode.' And you're Mrs. Severance."

"Yes. Nice water."

"Perfect."

A third look--a fairly long one--left Ted still puzzled. Age--thirty?
thirty-five? Swims perfectly. On "Mode." Wide eyes, sea-blue,
sea-changing. An odd nose that succeeded in being beautiful in spite of
itself. A rather full small mouth, not loose with sense nor rigid with
things controlled, but a mouth that would suck like a bee at the last
and tiniest drop of any physical sweet which the chin and the eyes had
once decided to want. The eyes measure, the mouth asks, the cleft chin
finds the way. A face neither content, nor easily to be contented--in
repose it is neither happy nor unhappy but only matured. Louise's
friend--that was funny--Louise had such an ideal simplicity of mind.
Well--

"If you float--after a while you don't know quite where you're
floating," said Mrs. Severance's voice detachedly.

Ted made no answer but turned over, spreading out his arms. For a few
moment