nd the sudden impulse
toward provocation, unless it might be her contempt for Shiela Cardross.
And that was the doing of Mrs. Van Dieman.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking up at him, and after a moment, down at
their clasped hands. "Are we going to swim out, Mr. Malcourt?--or shall
we continue to pose as newly married for the benefit of the East Coast?"

"We'll sit in the sands," he said. "We'll probably find a lot of things
to say to each other." But he dropped her fingers--gently.

"Unless you care to join your--care to join Miss Cardross."

Even while she spoke she remained calmly amazed at the commonness of her
own speech, the astonishing surface streak of unsuspected vulgarity
which she was naively exhibiting to this man.

Vetchen came noisily splashing up to join them, but he found neither of
them very attentive to him as they walked slowly to the beach and up to
the dry, hot sand.

Virginia curled up in the sand; Malcourt extended himself full length at
her feet, clasped fingers supporting his head, smooth, sun-browned legs
crossed behind him; and he looked like a handsome and rather sulky boy
lying there, kicking up his heels insouciantly or stretching luxuriously
in the sun.

Vetchen, who had followed, began an interminable story on the usual
theme of his daughter, Mrs. Tom O'Hara, illustrating her beauty, her
importance, and the incidental importance of himself; and it was with
profound surprise and deep offence that he discovered that neither
Malcourt nor Miss Suydam were listening. Indeed, in brief undertones,
they had been carrying on a guarded conversation of their own all the
while; and presently little Vetchen took his leave with a hauteur quite
lost on those who had so unconsciously affronted him.

"Of course it is very civil of you to say you remember me," Virginia was
saying, "but I am perfectly aware you do not."

Malcourt insisted that he recalled their meeting at Portlaw's Adirondack
camp on Luckless Lake two years before, cudgelling his brains at the
same time to recollect seeing Virginia there and striving to remember
some corroborative incident. But all he could really recall was a young
and unhappily married woman to whom he had made violent love--and it was
even an effort for him to remember her name.

"How desperately you try!" observed Virginia, leisurely constructing a
little rampart of sand between them. "Listen to me, Mr. Malcourt"--she
raised her eyes, and again the hint of prov