ushing breaker. They caught the swells and lay back against
the heavy tow, letting the wavelets lap up to their chins.

Mr. Arnheim, with little rivulets running down his cheeks, shook the
water out of his grayish hair and looked at her with salt-bitten,
red-rimmed eyes.

"Gee!" he wheezed. "You're a spunky little devil! Excuse me from the
beach-walkers; I like 'em when they're game like you."

She danced about like an Amphitrite. "Who would be afraid of the water
with a dandy swimmer like you?"

"This ain't nothin'," said Mr. Arnheim. "You ought to see me in still
water. At Arverne last summer I was the talk of the place."

They emerged from the water, dripping and heavy-footed. She wrung out
her brief little skirts and stamped her feet on the sand. Mr. Arnheim
hopped on one foot and then on the other, holding his head aslant.
Then they stretched out on the white, sunbaked beach. Miss Sternberger
loosened her hair and it showered about her.

"Gee! 'Ain't you got a swell bunch of hair!"

She shook and fluffed it. "You ought to seen it before I had typhoid. I
could sit on it then."

"That Phoebe Snow model that I got in mind for Lillian Russell would
make you look like a queen, with that hair of yourn!"

She buried his arm in the sand and patted the mound. "Now," she said, "I
got you, and you can't do anything without askin' me."

"You got me, anyway," he said, with an expressive glance.

"Yes," she purred, "that's what you say now; but when you get back to
New York you'll forget all about the little girl you met down at the
shore."

"That's all you know about me. I don't take up with every girl."

"I'm glad you don't," she said.

"But I'll bet you got a different fellow for every day when you're in
New York."

"Nothin' like that," she said; "but, anyway, there's always room for one
more."

Two young men without hats passed. Miss Sternberger called out her
greeting.

"Hello, Manny! Wasn't the water grand? What? Well, you tell Leo he don't
know nothin'. No, we don't want to have our pictures taken! Mr.
Arnheim, I want to introduce you to Mr. Landauer, a neckwear man out of
Baltimore, and Mr. Manny Sinai, also neckwear, out of New York."

They posed, with the white sunlight in their eyes.

"I hope we won't break the camera," said Arnheim.

The remark was greeted with laughter. The little machine clicked, the
new-comers departed, and then Miss Sternberger and Mr. Arnheim turned to
each other again.