unconscious of his presence and felt quite as sure of having the world to herself as he was. She was sitting on the edge of the raft, kicking a pair of the prettiest legs in the world in and out of the water. They were clad in the thinnest of blue-silk stockings, the same in which a few minutes before she had been dancing, but not being able to find any others in her bathhouse, she had just kept them on, recklessly ignoring the inevitable problem of what she should wear home. She was leaning back on her straightened arms, with her head back, looking up into the sky and softly whistling to herself. Ben saw in a second that she was the girl of the silver turban. 

 He stole nearer and nearer, cutting silently through the water, and then, when he had looked his fill, he put his head down again, splashed a little, and did not look up until his hand was on the raft, when he allowed an expression of calm surprise to appear on his face. 

 “I beg your pardon,” he said. “Is this a private raft?” 

 The young lady, who had had plenty of time since the splash to arrange her countenance, looked at him with a blank coldness, and then suddenly smiled. 

 “I thought it was a private world,” she replied. 

 “It’s certainly a very agreeable one,” said Ben, climbing on the raft. “And what I like particularly about it is the fact that no one is alive but you and me. Newport appears to be a city of the dead.” 

 “It always was,” she answered, contemptuously. 

 “Oh, come. Not an hour ago you were dancing in blue and green and a silver turban at a party over there,” and he waved his hand in the direction from which he had come. 

 “Did you think it was a good ball?” 

 “I enjoyed it,” he answered, truthfully. 

 Her face fell. “How very disappointing,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.” 

 “Disappointing that you did not see me there?” 

 “No,” she replied, and then, less positively; “No; I meant it was disappointing that you were the kind of man who went to parties—and enjoyed them.” 

 “It would be silly to go if you didn’t enjoy them,” he returned, lightly. 

 She turned to him very seriously. “You’re right,” she said; “it is silly—very silly, and it’s just what I do. I consider parties like that the lowest, 

 Prev. P 16/53 next