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Show WkM iS till! hAM 11 llkp Iwi Hi N' If 1 11 NSjjjg SSSag By Elizabeth Newport Hepburn. c .-as Jjj ' ' " " " - . l be growing higher, more fantastic in color and shape, Ihc ocean took on a threatening and alien aspect, hut as in some terrible dream she struggled with all these monster shapes of evil and she swam on and on and on. When Mcrwin came to himself he was lying on the sand; people were rubbing him, with an energy that hurl. He gasped, remembered. "Where is she?" he muttered. The big lifcrguardsmen laughed. "She? Why, man, she's half-way home by now. She changed her things at the bath-house after the doctor here said youM come round." The physician, : spectacled youngster who was putting cp at Mcrwin's cottage, grinned down at They were walking side by side. Mcrwin's votcv was very quiet and curiously happy. "I cam to walk home with you, Sea Nymph, and incidentally to ! thank you for saving my life!" I They had passed into a side street, and the frirl Mopped suddenly. Mcrwin saw that she looked i older than he remembered her, and he wondered 1 how any creature so strong as he knew her to be ) could seem so delicately molded as she looked in her I long, close-fitting coat. I "Do you realize, Mr. Merwin, that in town I caa ' only know you in the usual conventional W3y? You ! know my social standing and I happen to know something about yours! But I have my codcand : wc meet as equals or as strangers!" ffff-ERWIN had heen writing so hard all Trirl summer that ttm absolute rest and the Jijaw sea wind against his face and the feel of the warm sand under his bare fect was utterly satisfying. lie was glad now that he had not accepted the 1'armlcy's invitation to Oyster Bay; house parties had their charm, but he was in no mood for the complications of the social panic. The presence of one or two peaceful, congenial people might have been an addition to his present content, but he wanted nothing so much as rest, and rest was not to be obtained, in Mcrwin's estimation, esti-mation, where one must cavort about at the behest of half a dozen strenuous girls and an even more exacting hostess. But here on the ocean side of the island, his modest hostelry within a .-tone's throw of the surf, he could loaf in his bathing suit tor hours in the sun and rid himself gradually of the wretched sense of nervous strain which had possessed him for months. , Smcc it was September the bench was not crowded, just spots of color lure and there made by the floating float-ing fair hair of some children digging in the sand and by the red bathing cap of a tall girl somewhere about the middle distance. . Lying on his side, his elbow propping his head, his big 'boulders and muscular limbs passive, his eyes wide and dreamy and very dark. Mcrwin made a considerable addition to the composition of the picture, as the girl in the bathing-dress and red cap realized She was standing on the edge of things iry and stable, facing three thousand miles of salt sea Mcrwin, watching her. decided that she was one of the few women he had seen who in bathing costume lookrd thoroughbred. The longer he looked the more he liked her slcndcrncss. which was fct rounded and graceful, the poise of her small lead the grace of her every attitude and movc-ncnt. movc-ncnt. As he watched her she advanced slowly into ;he surf, making little jerky ejeculations as she noved. Evidently the water was a bit wintry, in spite of the warm sun. Suddenly she flung in all her slender length. Aicr-tvin Aicr-tvin shivered sympathetically as she drew to her full height dripping wet, rings of bright hair cs-rapir.g cs-rapir.g from her cap. Then she whirled about, danced into deeper water, waving her white arms, at the same hour. It was getting so late that there were fewer people along the beach, and fewer still who appeared to regard bathing in the cold surf as desirable pastime. But Mcrwin and the girl were compensating themselves them-selves for a long, hot summer in town. Daily they took the delicious plunge, and though he saw her nowhere else, each meeting added amazingly to his sense of their intimate kinship. One afternoon they sat together on the beach. Hitherto they had avoided personalities and talked of books. Mcrwin found that for all her outdoor air she had read a great deal and that her taste wis catholic and critical. Yet he didn't recover from his first impression that her charm was curiously unhackneyed, un-hackneyed, as though she belonged not to the endless end-less routine of cities but to the untrammelcd open, away from the rut of the usual, lie said something of this sort to her, in his tentative effort to place her among tlw types, and she smiled at him with lazy amusement. He added thoughtfully, "I suppose it's pirt of my interest in what I don't understand that I haven't even tried to discover your name!" "What difference do labels make?" she said. "Wc both 1 ovc this stretch of lonesome beach; wc both are tired of cvery-day security of common living; the sea is here, big and treacherous and changeable, why can't wc be unknown quantities to each other and enjoy the novel sensation? It will belong to the past .soon'" "That's what I fear!" Merwin sat up suddenly and stared at her. "Each afternoon when I come here I am afraid you won't appear; you don't stem quite real to me, rather as though I had found some mermaid mer-maid in the green waters, who any moment might dive under the sea to join her own people!" He laid his hand on her wet skirt. 'Tlease, strange Sea Lady, tell me that vou won't go back to them. to bring them some new-fangled toilet accessories for the combing of their sea-green tresses!" She ran down the beach, Mcrwin after her. "Be careful!' he shouted. "The undertow to-day is strong and tricky." But she was beyond the breakers which buffet and sting, her slender shape rising and falling on the green billows, her hair which she had forgotten to imprison in her cap, tossing like strange seaweed in the trough of the sea. Mcrwin swam strongly beside her. He had a curious unprecedented sensation, sen-sation, that this woman with the strong limbs, the bounding pulses, the tossing hair, was the one woman in the universe, a being to desire and to adore. He swam nearer. ''Mermaid I don't know your name; I'm afraid you arc not real, but I believe 1 love you ! ' He heard her laugh again. "And this is Mr. Merwin the widcly-rcad author, whoc name occasionally oc-casionally adorns the pages of the 'Society Journal' Jour-nal' as 'among those of distinction prestnl' !" She laughed again, and then gurgled distressfully, her mouth full of salt water. '.'You're not a mermaid yet!" scoffed Mcrwin. But his lips touched a strand -of floating hair, he felt that he had gone a little mad, yet reveled in the sensation. He could see the mockery in her wide eyes. "How do you know I'm 'possible' fit to mate with the ancient an-cient Mcrwins of Statcn Island. I may be socially an anachronism and though joiir pen runs free of social prejudices your soul doesn't!" Even here, in this region of wide sea and sky, Merwin felt a thrill of fear, almost repulsion. By taste and inheritance he was an aristocrat, with carefully defined standards in manners; living to him was a matter of exquisite adjustments, a subtle weeding out of things and people that seemed not worth while. She might be a mermaid, but he Dbviously reveling in the wine glow of the sea, which energizes every nerve and muscle. He had never seen anything prettier than the game she was playing with the surf. Suddenly he lost her, and in the thrill of something like terror he sprang to his f:et, only to sec her 'a dozen yards farther out foating serenely beyond the breakers. There were no life-guards nor ropes nearer than the hotel, a full quarter of a mile away and the leach was now practically deserted. Mcrwin took the r lunge jastily, swimming out towards the lightly foating figure As he drew near she turned on her face and began to swim, with long easy strokes. lie lept parallel with her, and they went up the beach toward the hotel. Merwin was watching, not entirely en-tirely impersonally, the red cap which suddenly seemed to symbolize the charm of the unknown; l!ie lure of the woman whom a man cannot place, who stands to him for mystery and a certain wild freedom from the conventions of life. Suddenly, as his novelist brain wove airy fancies Bbout her, she again disappeared. In another mo-ricnt mo-ricnt he was barely two feet from a lovely face flcng back upon high folded, arms. She floated 3iigh, her cap gone, leaving exposed a quantity of wet, curling hair, which now looked dark red rather than golden. "Did you dive to frighten inc.'" spluttered Mcr-win. Mcr-win. "If so, you succeeded!" She laughed. "I never thought of jou," she returned re-turned easily. "Why should I?" This was so unanswerable, although he didn't believe be-lieve her, that Mcrwin merely swam along silently, when he saw suddenly that they were heading for the open sea. "Turn over and swim!'' he commanded, "Wc are pelting too far out." And he set the example of heading toward the shore. For a moment she did not obey, and he had a sensation of altogether unreasoning un-reasoning rage, when her laugh rippled after him and the followed with a "Please wail!" which was a little breathless. As they emerged from the cradlc-Iikc swinging of the deep into rough surt and touched bottom, they looked t each other for a moment, then a great breaker hurled down upon them. The girl was flung roughly against Mcrwin; he caught her and held her steady against the fierce pounding of the waves. The beach beyond them was quite empty; Ihc sun low and red against a bank of clouds on the horizon. Mcrwin felt her tremble as he stood with his arm supporting her, the clear pallor of her wet face turned to deep warm pmL She was certainly beautiful, and they appeared to be quite alone in the universe. Also, she had frightened him and made him angry. "I should like you to know that I want to kiss yon. and that morally I consider I should be quite justified in doing so!" He strode into the shallows and loosened his hold. ' But I won't," he concluded mat him reassuringly. ''I rather think the young lady kit that you might not have the bother of thanking her. It's awkward, this gratitude business" Though he waited all the next afternoon, she did not rome. And he could not discover her name, or even Where ariunknown young lady with red hair had been staying. After three days of angry and fruitless seeking, Mcrwin went back to town. Settling Set-tling down again to steady work was not easy. He got back to the business of writing his novel with a stolid, dogged perscvcrcncc that was the utmost remove from enthusiasm. Each night, as Jic read his day's work, it seemed to him wholly uninteresting! ct his tentative excursions to the houses of his friends lent him no inspiration. He found them now amazingly commonplace, well bred, veil groomed, with a cordial liking for himself and his work but somehow shorn in his eyes of the human interest which counts for the joy of companionship. He wanted just one thing, to discover the hiding place of his Lady of the Sea. Yet he told himself a great many times that he was a fool; that though she had saved his life she cared nothing for him. And then one morning, still thinking about her. and wondering what manner of woman she might be in her native atmosphere, and imagining the simplicity, the dignity, the perfection of her environment, environ-ment, he came upon her face to face, behind the counter of a huge white marble department store 1 She was shaking out a pair of long white gloves preparatory to trying them on the hand of a woman sealed before the counter and as she met his amazed eyes the burning color ran over her face like a flame, and her eyes fell. Then she looked at him again, her head high. In response to his grave bow she gave a curt nod, and in another moment she was lost to him in the quiet and deft performance of her duties. lie went home in a fever of rage rage at himself, him-self, rage at this woman with her air of distinction, and for her extraordinary trade, and a sick amazement amaze-ment that the thing could be possible. And yet the poet in him scoffed at the notion that she was anything any-thing less alluring, less satisfying, than his nymph against a background cf blue sky and green water, lie thought of his friends, of his stately, old-fashioned mother, he remembered pretty, fastidious Jessie Van Xcss in her dignified old New York environment, en-vironment, and though he had never loved her, Jessie Van Xcss meant a great deal to him, not merely in herself, but because of what she represented in, the conservative set which to Mcrwin was the best that a modern city can show. Yet it was not Mcrwin's mother nor Mcrwin's friends who counted most in this struggle with his own soul. It was his own scorn he feared. lie had always recognized that there were two warring forces in his nature, the imagination which revels in the Merwin's low laugh was a pleasant sound. "Dear mermaid, I only want to marry jou so that we can meet very often! And afterwards wc will talk about social equality. There is an old, little, famous church within five minutes walk of us if you'll answer a few questions there first, we'll go home to dinner." Mcrwin's lady was walking again, very swiftly, her cheeks a deep pink, her brown eyes full of laughter. "Wc will notl" was what she said. Do you think I am going to be cheated out of my due share of courtship and congratulations and engagement presents?" pres-ents?" Her voice sounded happy, too, and Merwin stole a long glance at her profile. He saw tears on her eyelashes and he hated himself for his indecision. What strange thing was this accursed pride of place which made a man slow to recognize the one flower he wanted to gather out of all the world! "Then you will kindly tell me w hat wc arc going to do? where we arc going?" he said, as she led the way. "To call on a friend of mine, who will introduce us properly." she answered demurely. "Do you mind a long walk?" Mcrwin remembered that walk all his life the tang of the crisp air, his companion's long, light step, her gay voice. As they ncarcd Washington Square at last, she 1 turned to him with a little shrug. "And all these ' cons you don't even know my name. How absurd you arc more mad than any of your heroes!" "You could have told me any day these six weeks." he retorted. "I am quite indifferent now." ' 1 She ran up a flight of steps facing the square. He ' followed her blindly, and in a moment they entered a big. dark hall. Suddenly a girl in white swept down the stairway. "Why, Dallas Merwin and, in the name of all that's wonderful, Helen Archer togetherl And I had just been planning to introduce you to each other!" ! Mcrwin's lady laughed gaily. "You arc introduc- I ing us now which is what wc came here for !" Mcrwin stared. He was looking into the laughing i eyes of Jessie Van Xcss. and she had her arm around his Lady of the Sea. Jessie was speaking eagerly. "Helen, I have such news for you! Dad has been promised your appointment at last you're to have a clerkship in the Library at Washington! He says the Civil Service will be child's play to you but, oh. my dear, it will be so vile to have you go!" Helen looked at Merwin with mischief in her pay smile. "Mr Merwin, do you think they can spare me from the marble palace on the avenue?" But Jessie scented something hidden from her 1 , CL. . I It 1- royally. The brown eyes that looked at him laughed no longer. "Thank you so much for behaving like a gentleman!" she said bilingly. As she stood for a moment a step above him, her smile came suddenly; in the glow from the sky she looked nymph-like, with her loose, warm-lnicd hair and the exquisite lightness of her figure outlined in , her dripping dress. She laughed a soft laugh of raillery. "Thanji you and good-by Mr. Merwin." Her tone was the tone of casual quaintancc, for the benefit he guessed of the solitary attendant in the bath-house, but as he turned and ran swiftly towards his own cottage, he was curiously puzzled, lie muttered half aloud. "Mr. Mcrwin? Then all along she knew me!" And the maddening thing about it was that he had never to his knowledge beheld her before, and he might never sec her again. fjut the next day be found her at the same place, I might try to follow you, and you know I am only a mortal, and I might get drowned!" She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "The remedy is so obvious!" Then she laughed again with that teasing note in her soft voice. "But despite the unconventionally of at least one of his novels, Mr. Mcrwin is a stickler for form, family, the social amenities! So long as you don't know me, hadn't you better steer clear of personalities? You know I may be a book agent, or a stenographer. Think of the unpleasantness of discovering a onetime one-time mermaid at 3'our office desk some morning trying try-ing to sell you a fifth-rate encyclopedia!" Merwin sighed. "I don't work in an office! And I wish I were as sure of all things I want in life as I am that your occupation and existence arc the antithesis of such hopeless prose!" She sprang suddenly to her feet. "I'm going in again, just for a moment. It's glorious out there and ncrhaps my mermaid sisters arc waiting" for me laughed at the security of his fcclins that she was a mermaid of standing! Yet, even as he strove to tell her his thought shorn of its snobbism, he had a frightful physical physi-cal twinge. The ocean was chilly. For the first time in his life he knew the deadly fear which may overtake the strongest swimmer. He broke his sentence with an inarticulate cry, then "'My Cod, I can't swim!" In his horror of dragging her down, ho turned away from her, trying try-ing at the same time to turn on his back and float in order to rest. But she was beside him. "?ut your hand on p,y shoulder; mind, or I'll go under with you. Now " Merwin had obeyed, but the pain gripped him, he held on mechanically, his dead weight sagging ap-ainst her rtrcng, even strokes. But she swam bravely, though progress seemed so slow. After a l'ttle the effort bcan to tell upon her, her pulses throbbed, her heart pounded, the waves seemed to COPYRIGHT, 1500. beautiful and the unhackneyed wherever placed, and that respect for the very mundane conclusions of his own kind, his own class, even of himself, as he knew himself best in the moments when stories were not weaving themselves in his brain. Two weeks later, at six o'clock of an October day, Fifth Avenue was black with hurrying- groups of young women swept suddenly from the doors of a great building into the streams of pedestrians which throng one of the proudest streets in the world. At the corner, a little beyond the surging of these eager young women, a tall man waited and watched. At List came a girl dressed severely in dark green. Under her simple hat a glam o? bright hair showed; her face was pale, with tired lines about the mouth, and shadows beneath the beautiful eyes. The man came forward eagerly, and the girl faced him half ancrily, ho longer pale. "Mr. Mcrwin!" rvvvu vjes. out iuiiku upon .jcrwin. nan angrily. Had he misunderstood this brave friend of hers? "Do you know w'iy she has been doing this bizarre thing, Dallas? '-she asked him. "Do you know that down in Virginia the death of her father left only enough income to support her mother and her little lame brother, so she came here by herself and accepted the first wretched job?" Merwin looked her in the eyes, and his face burned. 'T think I do, Jess!" And then, to Jessie's astonishment. Helen leaned across and laid her hand on Mcrwin's clenched fingers. fin-gers. Hev touch wis light as the spray f the sea and her smile wa? very sweet. "Jessica, dear, he asked me to marry him an houf ago in the blaze of the avenue, with all the world-walking world-walking past!" She patted Mcrwin's hand with i little laugh that was very near tears. "Dar, all our lives we shall be so glad that yor asked mc then!" |