They laughed together.
“Please don’t be cross, Brassid dear, just because I can’t marry you! I’ll keep on calling you ‘dear’ if you won’t.”
V
HIS GRANDFATHER’S COURAGE MADE HER WANT TO LOVE HIM
In the sea again, whither she dragged him after that, far from land, as they looked back at the people on the beach:
“Before you came,” laughed the girl, “I had all the fun to myself. They would follow me with their glasses, expecting me to throw up my arms and call for help. The hotel man actually bought a rope with straps and buckles and things on the end to save me. They used to bring it down every time I went in. Now Bill uses it to pull the trunks up. And no one ever minds us. See, not a soul is looking this way! Brassid, it was lovely of you to come. You are”—she laughed, and by a deft stroke came so close as to touch him—“both my chaperon and palladium. Of course I suppose if we should ever get into trouble I would have to save you. My grandfather was a whaler. But back there they have the most beautiful confidence in you, just because you are a man. I am not pleased with you in that, Brassid. It is false pretence. I shall let you save yourself—remember.”
“I wouldn’t allow you to save me.”
“What! You ungrateful—Brassid! I can swim twice as far as you can. But I’m glad to hear that.”
“When I was taught to swim, my teacher dinned into my ears that I was never to forget when I went out that I had to come back. See?”
For reply she raced away from him.
“My grandfather was a whaler. I wasn’t taught to go back.”