"Yes, I was," she retorted defiantly but with an incredible inclination to weep.
"Pray don't let me detain you."
"Please," whispered Dee.
His face changed. He took a step toward her, and stopped.
A shriek, too authentic in its terror to be misinterpreted, penetrated the heavy door, followed by a babel.
"Turn on that light!" "Open the door." "No! No!" "She's drowned, I tell you." "Damn it, where's that switch?"
The electrician threw the door open, made a quick movement along the wall, and every detail of the scene leapt forth into bold significance. The women were huddled along the side of the pool, all except plump Mrs. Grant who was absurdly striving to draw an end of the net about her, and Sally Dangerfield who was bending above the slim, motionless nudity of Viccy Carson, stretched along the stairs.
"I stepped on her," wailed Sally. "She was lying on the bottom."
Half of the men had scattered for their clothes. The others stood, shamed and uncertain, except Cary Scott. In the face of reality in this calamitous form he had remembered an early emergency regimen, thrown himself down beside the woman, and with lips pressed to her inanimate mouth was striving to stimulate her flaccid lungs to induce breathing. Desisting for a moment he called: