"Gee!" he wheezed. "You're a spunky little devil! Excuse me from the beach-walkers; I like 'em when they're game like you."
She danced about like an Amphitrite. "Who would be afraid of the water with a dandy swimmer like you?"
"This ain't nothin'," said Mr. Arnheim. "You ought to see me in still water. At Arverne last summer I was the talk of the place."
They emerged from the water, dripping and heavy-footed. She wrung out her brief little skirts and stamped her feet on the sand. Mr. Arnheim hopped on one foot and then on the other, holding his head aslant. Then they stretched out on the white, sunbaked beach. Miss Sternberger loosened her hair and it showered about her.
"Gee! 'Ain't you got a swell bunch of hair!"
She shook and fluffed it. "You ought to seen it before I had typhoid. I could sit on it then."
"That Phoebe Snow model that I got in mind for Lillian Russell would make you look like a queen, with that hair of yourn!"
She buried his arm in the sand and patted the mound. "Now," she said, "I got you, and you can't do anything without askin' me."
"You got me, anyway," he said, with an expressive glance.
"Yes," she purred, "that's what you say now; but when you get back to New York you'll forget all about the little girl you met down at the shore."