Percival, as has been stated, rather prided himself on having exhausted life's thrills. When one has made a reputation for luging at Caux and has raced on skis with the professionals at St. Moritz, not to boast of a daring flight in a French aëroplane, one is apt to be rather superior to minor sports. But the present thrilling diversion, shared with a girl as irresistibly pretty and as utterly abandoned to the joy of the moment as Bobby Boynton, proved quite the most exhilarating pastime in which he had ever indulged.
Again and again the boat went out, and again and again Mrs. Weston beckoned frantically and imperatively from the pier. The last time she looked at her watch, she seemed to give up the hope of getting the delinquents back to shore. Gathering up scarfs and parasols, she and Elise hurried back to the steamer.
For the two young people in the boat the steamer had ceased to exist. Everything had ceased to exist except a narrow shell of wood, three brown-backed natives, and one towering wave after another that shot them through delicious realms of space and left them, with every nerve a-tingle, laughing into each other's eyes.
"Ripping, isn't it?" cried Percival on the third return. "Shall we have one more go?"
"I expect we ought to be going," said Bobby, shaking the salt spray out of her hair. "I don't see anything of Mrs. Weston and Elise."
"I don't want to see anything of them," cried Percival, recklessly. "Right ho! once more!"
She was nothing loath, and they went blithely forth to meet the next big wave.
"Mrs. Weston has gone!" said Bobby when they again touched shore. "Wouldn't it be a lark if we were left?"
No bullet ever brought a soaring bird to ground more promptly than this remark brought the Honorable Percival to his senses.
"Gad!" he cried, "but it's impossible! My luggage is all on board!"