Above the beach, under the long pavilions, sat mothers and chaperons.

Motors, beach-carts, and victorias were still arriving to discharge gaily dressed fashionables--for the hour was early--and up and down the inclined wooden walk leading from the bathing-pavilion to the sands, a constant procession of bathers passed with nod and gesture of laughing salutation, some already retiring to the showers after a brief ocean plunge, the majority running down to the shore, eager for the first frosty and aromatic embrace of the surf rolling in under a cloudless sky of blue.
As Eileen Erroll emerged from the surf and came wading shoreward through the seething shallows, she caught sight of Selwyn sauntering across the sands toward the water, and halted, knee-deep, smilingly expectant, certain that he had seen her.
Gladys Orchil, passing her, saw Selwyn at the same moment, and her clear, ringing salute and slender arm aloft, arrested his attention; and the next moment they were off together, swimming toward the sponson canoe which Gerald had just launched with the assistance of Sandon Craig and Scott Innis.
For a moment Eileen stood there, motionless.

Knee-high the flat ebb boiled and hissed, dragging at her stockinged feet as though to draw her seaward with the others.

Yesterday she would have gone, without a thought, to join the others; but yesterday is yesterday.

It seemed to her, as she stood there, that something disquieting had suddenly come into the world; something unpleasant--but indefinite--yet sufficient to leave her vaguely apprehensive.
The saner emotions which have their birth in reason she was not ignorant of; emotion arising from nothing at all disconcerted her--nor could she comprehend the slight quickening of her heart-beats as she waded to the beach, while every receding film of water tugged at her limbs as though to draw her backward in the wake of her unquiet thoughts.
Somebody threw a tennis-ball at her; she caught it and hurled it in return; and for a few minutes the white, felt-covered balls flew back and forth from scores of graceful, eager hands.