Chapter 15

Any girl of sixteen fond of chemistry and cooking can have a first-rate time on the Great South Beach in summer. Any girl of sixteen companioned by from one to three youths slightly older than herself, and of nicely differentiated ages and temperaments, can have a good time in summer anywhere. Mermaid was as happy on the beach as if she had been born there as, indeed, for all practical purposes, she had. She was not “as happy as if she had lived there all her life,” because no one can be happy in a place that has not gained some charm by contrast with other places. The girl collected shells and sea creatures, drifting from chemistry into biology and back again; she analyzed sea weed and admired it; she divided with Keturah Smiley the labour of cooking meals to which the salt air gave inimitable savour; she boated, she swam, waded, tramped the dunes, and sunned herself on the sands. She read everything from the habits of jellyfish to the loves of Maurice Hewlett’s heroes and heroines, moving against mediæval backgrounds as rich and varied as the scenes in old tapestries. She flirted; and once she found herself in a game of hearts.

Twenty-two-year-old Guy Vanton, rather short, snub-nosed, with black hair and attractive eyes, had gone into the surf with her and, with the ignorance of those unacquainted with that shore, had ventured too far out. The huge curl of a breaker caught him, for a southeast wind was blowing and the ocean was beginning to show whitecaps. Guy was struck on the shoulder by the full force of the falling wave, knocked down, buried, washed about, and dragged out as the tons of water flung upon the sloping sand shingle receded with a baffled roar. Mermaid, higher up on the slope, saw him fall. She breasted the water and, as the bottom sank away from under her feet, struck out, swimming.