When asked again to spell "separate," Antonia answered, "He is handsome, isn't he?"
"Not to my mind," Pearl answered firmly. "He's clean and healthy looking."
"He's beautifully clean," said Antonia. "Think of going about with someone like that!" The measure of her collapse might be taken when a few minutes later she dashed to the window to watch him drive away with her sister, and turning back she exclaimed sadly, "Gee, I never thought I'd wish I was Dolly!"
Pearl thought to herself that there was no great difficulty in seeing through this young man's plans. He wasn't the kind who wept on the desk like the third vice president of the Encyclopedia company. No, he was going to use Antonia's open admiration as an avenue to the governess. Well, the situation could not prolong itself. This was Saturday, and he would be going early Monday morning. There oughtn't to be much trouble in keeping out of his way. She could count on Dolly's coöperation. She sighed, wishing that Mrs. Conway were more friendly. Dolly would keep him playing golf as late as possible; they would not meet again until luncheon, and that was perfectly safe.
She miscalculated. Williams' will was stronger than Dolly's. It was a day of long, regular waves, high but without force, turned back from the shore by a northerly wind. Antonia was standing near shore diving them, wave after wave, and shaking her short hair out of her eyes after each one passed over her head. Pearl had swum out beyond the line of breakers and was sitting on a barrel, enjoying the sensation of being pulled gently in and out as each swell rolled past her. Suddenly on the shore she saw Williams and Dolly appear in their bathing things. She understood it all. Dolly had been lured to the beach at this early hour by the idea of an undisturbed tête-à-tête. The girl sat down, as if confident that Williams was going to do the same, but he stood gazing out to sea. Pearl felt his eyes reach her, and then he dived into one of the great crested billows and she saw that he was making straight for her barrel. He was coming fast, but he was coming under water. When he reached the barrel Pearl was not there. Looking back, he saw her almost at the shore.
He was, however, the kind of man in whom opposition rouses a sort of malignant persistence. All through luncheon she kept catching his pale eye. She thought Durland noticed it, and hoped that Dolly didn't. Antonia hardly moved her eyes from his face.
After lunch, when they were all in the sitting room, Antonia ran away to get him a match before anyone else had noticed he needed one. Dolly smiled.
"What's this, Allen?" she said. "Is Antonia another of your victims?"
Williams frowned, not because he was in the least annoyed but to indicate that he was a man impervious to flattery. Pearl had one of her inspirations.