It was a morning that made the two feel as if it were impossible to keep still. The flat shingle, washed smooth by the high waves of the previous night, was firm under foot as they walked and trotted along between the wreckage and driftwood on one side and the highest wash of the hissing water on the other. An occasional flight of small plover suggested the wildness of the spot, and something of the spirit of these birds in their curving and wheeling flight seemed to possess the two young people—making them run and caper on the sands.
"You ought to be able to run a pretty good race," said Maurice, glancing at the shapely figure of his companion.
"So I am," said Margaret, as she sprang up on a large piece of driftwood. "I'll run you a race to that bush on the far point around the little bay. Do you see it?"
"I see it," said Maurice. "Are you ready? Go!"
Margaret sprang down from the stump and was off like an arrow. Morry thought it was only a sham and a pretense of hers, as he bounded off beside her. He soon found his mistake, however, as his unaccustomed muscles did their utmost to keep him abreast of the gliding figure in the dark-blue skirt and jersey. They rounded the curve of the bay, Maurice on the inside track. But this advantage did not give him a lead. The distance to the winning point seemed fatal to his chances, but he hung on, hoping his opponent would tire. Again he was mistaken.
"Come on, Morry! Don't be beaten by a woman."
Her voice, as she said this, seemed aggressively fresh, and the taunt brought Rankin even with her again. He had no breath left to say anything in reply as they came to a small indentation filled with water where the shore curved in, making another little bay. Margaret ran around it, but Maurice, as a last chance, splashed through it, regardless of water up to his ankles. He gained about ten feet by this subterfuge. A few gliding bounds, impossible to describe, and Margaret was beside him again.
"That was a shabby advantage to take," she said as she passed his panting form. "Now I'll show you how fast I can run."
She left him then as he labored on. She floated away from him like a thistle-blossom on the breeze. He forgot his defeat in his admiration of that fleeting figure which he would have believed to move in the air had he not seen marks in the sand made by toes of small shoes. He could hardly comprehend how she could run away from him in this way. Yet there was no wings attached to the lithe form before him. No wings, but a bit of silk ankle which seemed far preferable.
Margaret stopped at the bush which was to be the winning post. Morry then staggered in exhausted and threw himself sideways into the yielding mass of the willow bush and fell out on the other side.