“This is worse than the breakers,” he said, with a nod of his capped head at the surging crowd, “and almost as dangerous, and, of course, you are to be found at the outer verge.”
“Do you think they all have friends coming? What an elastic place it is!”
“Mere idle curiosity brings many of them, a summer idleness to see new faces. It brought me.”
“I came to meet a cousin,” she said, a little sharply.
“Then I shall be handy with bag and baggage. Even in these days, I believe, ladies carry things when they travel.”
Jacqueline looked at his gray eyes with an expression that baffled him. At length she spoke.
“My cousin happens to be a man. He doubtless will carry the regulation dress-suit case, which he is quite able to manage himself.”
Merrington let her irony pass unnoticed.
“How little you have allowed me to learn about you,” he said, holding her sunshade so as to break the glare in her eyes, “and we have known each other—how long?”
“Over two weeks,” she replied, instantly, and then shut her lips tight, coloring crimson.