es, and
when he had edged past her the three were gone.

Andy waited, comforted by the knowledge that they had not come out,
until the minutes passed his patience and he went in, searched the
gallery unavailingly, came out again and wandered on dispiritedly to
the pleasure pier. There, leaning over the rail, he saw her again
almost beneath him in the sand, scantily clad in a bathing suit. The
man, still more scantily clad, was trying to coax her into the water
and she was hanging back and laughing a good deal, with an occasional
squeal.

Andy leaned rather heavily upon the railing and watched her
gloweringly, incredulously. Custom has much to do with a man's (or a
woman's) idea of propriety, and one Andrew Green had for long been
unaccustomed to the sight of nice young women disporting themselves
thus in so public a place. He could not reconcile it with the girl as
he had known her in her father's cabin, and he was not at all sure
that he wanted to do so.

He was just turning gloomily away when she glanced up, saw him and
waved her hand. "Hello, Andy," she called gaily. "Come on down and
take a swim, why don't you?"

Andy, looking reproachfully into her upturned face, shook his head. "I
can't," he told her. "I'm lame yet." It was not at all what he had
meant to say, any more than this was the meeting he had dreamed about.
He resented both with inner rage.

"Oh. When did you come?" she asked casually, and was whisked away by
the man before Andy could tell her. The other girl was there also, and
the three ran gleefully down to meet a roller larger than the others
had been; met it, were washed, with much screaming and laughter, back
to shore and stood there dripping. Andy glared down upon them and
longed for the privilege of drowning the fellow.

"We're going up into the plunge," called Mary. "Come on. I'll see you,
when I come out." They scampered away, and he, calling himself many
kinds of fool, followed.

In the plunge, Andy was still more at a disadvantage, for since he was
a spectator, a huge sign informed him that he must go up stairs. He
went up with much difficulty into the gallery, found himself a seat
next the rail and searched long for Mary among the bathers below. He
would never have believed that he would fail to know her at sight, but
with fifty women, more or less, dressed exactly alike and with ugly
rubber caps pulled down to eyebrows and ears, recognition must
necessarily be slow.

While he lea