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.

He heard her, and came toward her in a halting, dazed way, stopping twice to cleanse his face of the bright blood that streaked it.

“It’s nothing,” he said—­“the infernal thing hit me. . . .  Oh, don’t use that!” as she drenched her kerchief in cold sea-water and held it toward him with both hands.

“Take it!—­I—­I beg of you,” she stammered.  “Is it s-serious?”

“Why, no,” he said, his senses clearing; “it was only a rap on the head—­and this blood is merely a nuisance. . . .  Thank you, I will use your kerchief if you insist. . . .  It’ll stop in a moment, anyway.”

“Please sit here,” she said—­“here where I’ve been sitting.”

He did so, muttering:  “What a nuisance.  It will stop in a second. . . .  You needn’t remain here with me, you know.  Go in; it is simply glorious.”