In leisure moments he often came down to the bathing-beach at the hour made fashionable; he conducted himself amiably with dowager and chaperon, with portly father and nimble brother, with the late débutantes of the younger set and the younger matrons, individually, collectively, impartially.
He and Gerald usually challenged the rollers in a sponson canoe when Gerald was there for the week-end; or, when Lansing came down, the two took long swims seaward or cruised about in Gerald's dory, clad in their swimming-suits; and Selwyn's youth became renewed in a manner almost ridiculous, so that the fine lines which had threatened the corners of his mouth and eyes disappeared, and the clear sun tan of the tropics, which had never wholly faded, came back over a smooth skin as clear as a boy's, though not as smoothly rounded. His hair, too, crisped and grew lighter under the burning sun, which revealed, at the temples, the slightest hint of silver. And this deepened the fascination of the younger sort for the idol they had set up upon the sands of Silverside.
Gladys was still eloquent on the subject, lying flat on the raft where all were now gathered in a wet row, indulging in sunshine and the two minutes of gossip which always preceded their return swim to the beach.
"It is partly his hair," she said gravely, "that makes him so distinguished in his appearance—just that touch of silver; and you keep looking and looking until you scarcely know whether it's really beginning to turn a little gray or whether it's only a lighter colour at the temples. How insipid is a mere boy after such a man as Captain Selwyn! . . . I have dreamed of such a man—several times."
The Minster twins gazed soulfully at the Atlantic; Eileen Erroll bit her under lip and stood up suddenly. "Come on," she said; joined her hands skyward, poised, and plunged. One after another the others followed and, rising to the surface, struck out shoreward.
On the sunlit sands dozens of young people were hurling tennis-balls at each other. Above the beach, under the long pavilions, sat mothers and chaperons. Motors, beach-carts, and victorias were still arriving to discharge gaily dressed fashionables—for the hour was early—and up and down the inclined wooden walk leading from the bathing-pavilion to the sands, a constant procession of bathers passed with nod and gesture of laughing salutation, some already retiring to the showers after a brief ocean plunge, the majority running down to the shore, eager for the first frosty and aromatic embrace of the surf rolling in under a cloudless sky of blue.
As Eileen Erroll emerged from the surf and came wading shoreward through the seething shallows, she caught sight of Selwyn sauntering across the sands toward the water, and halted, knee-deep, smilingly expectant, certain that he had seen her.
Gladys Orchil, passing her, saw Selwyn at the same moment, and her clear, ringing salute and slender arm aloft, arrested his attention; and the next moment they were off together, swimming toward the sponson canoe which Gerald had just launched with the assistance of Sandon Craig and Scott Innis.
For a moment Eileen stood there, motionless. Knee-high the flat ebb boiled and hissed, dragging at her stockinged feet as though to draw her seaward with the others. Yesterday she would have gone, without a thought, to join the others; but yesterday is yesterday. It seemed to her, as she stood there, that something disquieting had suddenly come into the world; something unpleasant—but indefinite—yet sufficient to leave her vaguely apprehensive.
The saner emotions which have their birth in reason she was not ignorant of; emotion arising from nothing at all disconcerted her—nor could she comprehend the slight quickening of her heart-beats as she waded to the beach, while every receding film of water tugged at her limbs as though to draw her backward in the wake of her unquiet thoughts.