Somebody threw a tennis-ball at her; she caught it and hurled it in return; and for a few minutes the white, felt-covered balls flew back and forth from scores of graceful, eager hands. A moment or two passed when no balls came her way; she turned and walked to the foot of a dune and seated herself cross-legged on the hot sand.
Sometimes she watched the ball players, sometimes she exchanged a word of amiable commonplace with people who passed or halted to greet her. But she invited nobody to remain, and nobody ventured to, not even several very young and ardent gentlemen who had acquired only the rudiments of social sense. For there was a sweet but distant look in her dark-blue eyes and a certain reserved preoccupation in her acknowledgment of salutations. And these kept the would-be adorer moving—wistful, lagging, but still moving along the edge of that invisible barrier set between her and the world with her absent-minded greeting, and her serious, beautiful eyes fixed so steadily on a distant white spot—the sponson canoe where Gladys and Selwyn sat, their paddle blades flashing in the sun.
How far away they were. . . . Gerald was with them. . . . Curious that Selwyn had not seen her waiting for him, knee-deep in the surf—curious that he had seen Gladys instead. . . . True, Gladys had called to him and signalled him, white arm upflung. . . . Gladys was very pretty—with her heavy, dark hair and melting, Spanish eyes, and her softly rounded, olive-skinned figure. . . . Gladys had called to him, and she had not. . . . That was true; and lately—for the last few days—or perhaps more—she herself had been a trifle less impulsive in her greeting of Selwyn—a little less sans-façon with him. . . . After all, a man comes when it pleases him. Why should a girl call him?—unless she—unless—unless—
Perplexed, her grave eyes fixed on the sea where now the white canoe pitched nearer, she dropped both hands to the sand—those once wonderfully white hands, now creamed with sun tan; and her arms, too, were tinted from shoulder to finger-tip. Then she straightened her legs, crossed her feet, and leaned a trifle forward, balancing her body on both palms flat on the sand. The sun beat down on her; she loosened her hair to dry it, and as she shook her delicate head the superb red-gold mass came tumbling about her face and shoulders. Under its glimmering splendour, and through it, she stared seaward out of wide, preoccupied eyes; and in her breast, stirring uneasily, a pulse, intermittent yet dully importunate, persisted.
The canoe, drifting toward the surf, was close in, now. Gerald rose and dived; Gladys, steadying herself by a slim hand on Selwyn's shoulder, stood up on the bow, ready to plunge clear when the canoe capsized.
How wonderfully pretty she was, balanced there, her hand on his shoulder, ready for a leap, lest the heavy canoe, rolling over in the froth, strike her under the smother of foam and water. . . . How marvellously pretty she was. . . . Her hand on his shoulder. . . .
Miss Erroll sat very still; but the pulse within her was not still.
When the canoe suddenly capsized, Gladys jumped, but Selwyn went with it, boat and man tumbling into the tumult over and over; and the usual laughter from the onlookers rang out, and a dozen young people rushed into the surf to right the canoe and push it out into the surf again and clamber into it.
Gerald was among the number; Gladys swam toward it, beckoning imperiously to Selwyn; but he had his back to the sea and was moving slowly out through the flat swirling ebb. And as Eileen looked, she saw a dark streak leap across his face—saw him stoop and wash it off and stand, looking blindly about, while again the sudden dark line criss-crossed his face from temple to chin, and spread wider like a stain.
"Philip!" she called, springing to her feet and scarcely knowing that she had spoken.