ers. Under its
glimmering splendour, and through it, she stared seaward out of wide,
preoccupied eyes; and in her breast, stirring uneasily, a pulse,
intermittent yet dully importunate, persisted.

The canoe, drifting toward the surf, was close in, now. Gerald rose and
dived; Gladys, steadying herself by a slim hand on Selwyn's shoulder,
stood up on the bow, ready to plunge clear when the canoe capsized.

How wonderfully pretty she was, balanced there, her hand on his
shoulder, ready for a leap, lest the heavy canoe, rolling over in the
froth, strike her under the smother of foam and water. . . . How
marvellously pretty she was. . . . Her hand on his shoulder. . . .

Miss Erroll sat very still; but the pulse within her was not still.

When the canoe suddenly capsized, Gladys jumped, but Selwyn went with
it, boat and man tumbling into the tumult over and over; and the usual
laughter from the onlookers rang out, and a dozen young people rushed
into the surf to right the canoe and push it out into the surf again and
clamber into it.

Gerald was among the number; Gladys swam toward it, beckoning
imperiously to Selwyn; but he had his back to the sea and was moving
slowly out through the flat swirling ebb. And as Eileen looked, she saw
a dark streak leap across his face--saw him stoop and wash it off and
stand, looking blindly about, while again the sudden dark line
criss-crossed his face from temple to chin, and spread wider like a
stain.

"Philip!" she called, springing to her feet and scarcely knowing that
she had spoken.

He heard her, and came toward her in a halting, dazed way, stopping
twice to cleanse his face of the bright blood that streaked it.

"It's nothing," he said--"the infernal thing hit me. . . . Oh, don't use
_that_!" as she drenched her kerchief in cold sea-water and held it
toward him with both hands.

"Take it!--I--I beg of you," she stammered. "Is it s-serious?"

"Why, no," he said, his senses clearing; "it was only a rap on the
head--and this blood is merely a nuisance. . . . Thank you, I will use
your kerchief if you insist. . . . It'll stop in a moment, anyway."

"Please sit here," she said--"here where I've been sitting."

He did so, muttering: "What a nuisance. It will stop in a second. . . .
You needn't remain here with me, you know. Go in; it is simply
glorious."

"I've been in; I was drying my hair."

He glanced up, smiling; then, as the wet kerchief against his forehead
redden