The Tyranny of Weakness | Page 7

unhurried strokes toward the bar. This swimmer had come alone from
the hotel bath-houses and had strolled down into the streaming bubbles
of an outgoing wave without halting to inspect the other bathers. There
was a businesslike directness in the way he kept onward and outward
until a comber lifted him and his swimming had begun.
The young man might have been between twenty and twenty-five and a
Greek feeling for line and form and rhythmic strength would have
called his body beautiful. Its flesh was smooth and brown, flowing in
frictionless ease over muscles that escaped bulkiness; its shoulders
swung with a sort of gladiatorial freedom. But the Hellenic sculptor
would have found the head suited to his use as well as the torso and
limbs, for it was a head well shaped and well carried, dominated by
eyes alert with intelligence, and enlivened with humor.
As he rocked between crest and trough, the swimmer's glance caught
the shattered form of a breaker at the end of the bar. He liked things to
be the biggest of their sort. If there was to be surf, he wanted it to be

like that beyond, with a fierce song in its breaking and the foam of the
sea's endless sweat in its lashings.
When at last he let himself down and his feet touched bottom, he wiped
the brine out of his eyes and hurried up the shallow rise--then halted
suddenly. The bar had appeared empty of human life, but now he
caught a glimpse of a head and a pair of shoulders and they were
feminine. A normal curiosity as to further particulars asserted itself. He
had a distinct feeling of apprehension lest the face, when seen, should
prove a disappointment, because unless it was singularly
attractive--more attractive than wits warranted by any law of
probability--it would be distressingly out of keeping with the charm
and grace of the figure which came into full view as he waded ashore in
spite of the masses of dark and lustrous hair which fell free. The
unknown lady was sitting on the sand with her back half turned and, in
the soaked and clinging silk of her bathing dress, she had an alluring
lissomness of line and curve. If her face did match her beauty of body
she would have rather more than one woman's share of Life's gifts, he
philosophized, and by Nature's law of compensation she would
probably be vapid and insipid of mind.
But while he was engaging himself in these personal speculations the
lady herself was obviously quite serene in her ignorance of his presence
or existence. She conceived herself to be in sole possession of her
island kingdom of an hour and was complacently using it as an
exclusive terrain.
She had removed her blue bathing cap and tossed it near by on the sand.
She had let her hair out free to the sun, in whose light it glowed
between the rich darkness of polished mahogany and the luster of jet.
After all perhaps he had better announce himself in some audible
fashion since, secure in her supposed isolation, the other occupant of
the bar proceeded to remove a silk stocking, which matched the cap in
color, and to examine with absorbed interest what he supposed to be a
stone-bruise on an absurdly small and pink heel. Discreetly he coughed.
The young woman looked quickly over her shoulder and their eyes met.

A perfunctory apology for invasion shaped itself in his mind, but
remained unuttered. He stood instead, his lips parted and his eyes
brimming with astonishment. The face not only met the high
requirements set for it by his idea of appropriateness, but abundantly
surpassed the standard. Moreover, it was a face he recognized. He was
not at first quite certain that her recognition of him had been as swift. A
half dozen years, involving the transition from boyhood to manhood
might have dimmed his image in her memory, so he hastened to
introduce himself, striding across as she came a little confusedly to her
feet--one silk shod and one bare.
"Heaven be praised, Conscience," he shouted with an access of boyish
elation in his voice. "This is too lucky to believe. Don't say you've
absolutely forgotten me--Stuart Farquaharson."
She stood there before him, dangling a stocking in her left hand as she
extended her right. Dark hair falling below her waist framed a face
whose curves and feature-modelings were all separate delights uniting
to make a total of somewhat gorgeous loveliness. Her lips were
crimson petals in a face as creamy white as a magnolia bloom, and her
dark eyes twinkled with inward mischief. It was a face which in repose
held that serenely grave quality which a painter might have selected for
his study of a