"You needn't be. I know a girl named Madge, too."
"Oh." Fallon's grey-green eyes narrowed. His lean face looked suddenly ugly, like a mean dog. Or more like a wolf, perhaps, with his thin straight lips and slanting eyes.
"What did Madge tell you about me?" he asked softly.
"She said you were no good." The blue eyes studied his face. "And," added the girl deliberately, "I think she was right."
"Yeah?" said Fallon, very gently. He hadn't yet got over his cold rage at being jilted for a dull, prosperous prig. The girl's face was like a mask cut out of brown wood and set with hard sapphires. He made a tigerish, instinctive movement toward it.
A wave took them unawares, knocked them together and down in a struggling tangle. They broke water, gasping in the after-swirl.
Then, quite suddenly, the girl screamed.
It was a short scream, strangled with sea-water, but it set the hairs prickling on Fallon's neck. He looked past the girl, outward.
Something was rising out of the sea.