"Um," he said, and stood amidships with his legs wide apart and with the utmost precision, with regular pauses, turning his head to right and left, sent out long, steady calls. Some power-boat, feeling her way in from fishing, might come within hail and give them a tow, or the big launch might be poking about for them and pick up his voice. Good God, to think that he had lived to be a man without being able to master a damn fool engine! That was one of the worst points of being able to buy service. It plucked initiative out of the brain like the bones out of fish. "Galatea, ... Galatea.... Ahoy."
How extraordinary it was, she thought, sitting all together, as close as she could get to herself. They were like two children lost in the woods,—two people, both of whom had been able to buy the earth, played a trick upon and shown that the earth was no more theirs than any other man's,—two people cut off, brought all the way down the great ladder with a run, to the desire for charity,—two people, young and wilful and proud and vain, who had come together by a lie, been kept together by a condition of nature against which they, for all their money, and youth and supreme confidence, were utterly impotent,—two people mutually aware of being man and woman drifting together in a new life to death, perhaps....
"Galatea, Galatea, ahoy."
She gave a little cry of wonder and fright.
In an instant he was bending over her. "What can I do?"
"Nothing else," she said, smiling up at him.
"You're shivering."
"Oh, no. I'm only—cool. That's all."
He flung open the locker. There was nothing in it but his bathing suit. He had left a big, thick towel on the rocks to dry. He seemed to have left everything on the rocks,—including his wits. There was nothing to put round her.
"Galatea,—Galatea, ahoy."