d surmise!--was all this due simply
to the instinct of sex: was it merely the man in him quickening to the
knowledge that a pretty woman existed in his neighbourhood?

At this last he laughed openly, and jumped out of bed. At all events, no
healthy man had any business dawdling away a single minute of so rare a
morning.

Already the sun was warm, the faint breeze bland. Standing at the window
and shading his eyes against the glare, he surveyed a world new-washed
and radiant: the sun majestically climbing up and away from the purple
lattice-work of cloud that barred the nitid mauve horizon; the distant
beach, a violet-tinted barrier between the firmament and sea; the
landlocked bay dimpled with vagrant catspaws and smitten with sunlight
as with a scimitar of fire; the earth fresh and fragrant, steaming
faintly in the ardent glow of dawn.

In another moment he was at the kitchen door, interrupting Sum Fat's
first matutinal attentions to his teeth with a demand for a
bathing-suit. One of Ember's was promptly forthcoming, and by happy
accident fitted him indifferently well; so that three minutes later
found him poised on the end of the small dock, above fifteen feet of
water so limpid bright that he could easily discern the shapes of
pebbles on the bottom.

He dived neatly, coming to the surface with his flesh tingling with
delight of the cool water; then with the deliberate and powerful
movements of an experienced swimmer, struck away from the land.

Two hundred yards out he paused, rolled over on his back and, hands
clasped beneath his head, floated serenely, sunlight warming his
upturned face, his body rejoicing in the suave, clean, fluid embrace, an
almost overpowering sense of physical sanity and boundless strength
rioting through him. Quietly, intimately, he smiled at the sound, good
old world, athrill with the wonder and beauty of life.

Then something disturbed him: a dull fluttering, vibrant upon his
submerged eardrums. Extending his arms and moving his hands gently to
preserve his poise, he lifted his head from the water. The neighbouring
shore-line leaped flashing to his vision like an exquisite disclosure of
jewelled marquetry. His vision ranged quickly from Ember's landing-stage
to that on the water-front of the Fiske place, and verified a surmise
with the discovery of a motor-boat standing out from the latter. The
churning of its propeller had roused him.

Holding its present course, the boat would cle