tors? And may I take it that they will
accept service?" (Here I rolled over and leaned on my elbow.) "You do
look fit. Just move your heel out of that pool--there's an anemone
going to mistake it for a piece of alabaster. That's right! Oh, but,
Mermaid, do tell me how you keep your hair so nice when you're bathing?"

"Like it?"

"I love it."

"I simply don't put my head under."

"A most dangerous practice, believe me."

"It's worth the risk."

"I belive it is."

She was sitting on a low slab of rock, clad in a bathing-costume of
plain dark blue, and fashioned just like my own. Her dark hair was
parted in the middle and divided at the back into two long, thick
plaits which were turned up and hair-pinned round the top of her head.
Her features were beautiful and her eyes big and dark as her hair. Her
figure was slim and graceful, and her arms and hands and feet were very
shapely. One brown knee was crossed over the other, and her left hand
held the camera.

"I do have luck, you know," I said.

"What luck?"

"Well, honestly, it's a great pleasure to meet you like this, when I
might have spent all day talking with my silly crowd and never have
known of your existence. Don't be afraid. I merely mean that I am
enjoying your society, and I'm glad I came round the corner. I'm not
in love with you, and I don't want never to leave your side again,
but--oh, you understand, Mermaid, don't you? You look as if you could
if you liked."

My companion stared out to sea with a faint smile on her lips. I flung
out an arm with a gesture of despair.

"Oh, if you knew how sick I am of the girl about town, the girl of
to-day, who won't be natural herself, and won't let you be natural
either, who is always bored, and who has no use for anyone who isn't
forever making mock love to her, or--Why on earth can't a man tell a
woman he likes her company, and mean it, without the woman thinking he
wants to kiss her, or marry her, or something?"

I broke off and looked at her.

"Go on," she said. "You interest me."

"Oh, Heavens," I said falteringly. "Why have you got such big eyes?"

At this, to my discomfiture, she broke into peals of merriment.

"Before you looked at me like that, I was really enjoying your company
without wanting to kiss you."

"Steady!"

"Besides your eyes, there's your--Look here, it isn't fair."

"That'll do. I'll race you to that rock out there."

She was in the water first, but I