A moment or two passed when no balls came her way; she turned and walked to the foot of a dune and seated herself cross-legged on the hot sand.
Sometimes she watched the ball players, sometimes she exchanged a word of amiable commonplace with people who passed or halted to greet her.
But she invited nobody to remain, and nobody ventured to, not even several very young and ardent gentlemen who had acquired only the rudiments of social sense.

For there was a sweet but distant look in her dark-blue eyes and a certain reserved preoccupation in her acknowledgment of salutations.

And these kept the would-be adorer moving--wistful, lagging, but still moving along the edge of that invisible barrier set between her and the world with her absent-minded greeting, and her serious, beautiful eyes fixed so steadily on a distant white spot--the sponson canoe where Gladys and Selwyn sat, their paddle blades flashing in the sun.
How far away they were.

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