“Come, let’s get out of this,” urged King. He saw other young men moving towards them. “If that boy who put his arm around you wasn’t Bowery he passes there every day.”

“What of it? He’s all American. I like his independence.”

“So do I,” said King. “On reflection, I believe I was a little jealous.”

“He is the most direct young man I ever met. I told him I was married and he promptly called me a liar.”

Billee found a tired woman sitting in the sand, a tousled baby in her lap. She dropped down by her.

“Let me hold him, a little, won’t you, please?” The mother’s gaze rested on her face but an instant.

“Guess I will,” she said. “I want to go somewhere and eat something. My husband hasn’t come yet.” Billee took the baby, whose great eyes questioned her.

“Look, King, what beauty-brown eyes!”

“Mind your dress,” he cautioned. “He’s pretty well messed up.”

“I don’t care. I never had a chance to be a baby in the sand and smear my nose. I love him, King, just as he is.” She cuddled him up in her arms and hummed a lullaby, of the kind all women inherit and all babies understand. He was asleep when the mother came back. King’s eyes were in the sunset. One rose cloud had shaped itself into a cottage and there was a gate and a girl leaning over—then Billee woke him.

And the great round moon came up—the moon that made the moonlight where things happened that people were not to be blamed for. And Billee challenged King for a swim.

In rented bath suit, King waited for her. She came, such a vision of loveliness as Coney Island in all its glory had seldom if ever beheld. For Billee had the light, slender figure of Ariel and was clad in the conventional two-piece suit of a boy.

“Billee! For heaven’s sake, go back! or get in the water quick!”

“Why, what’s the matter, King?” she said, puzzled, and then glancing down. “It is a little short and tight, but the girl in the store said it would fit. I couldn’t try it on. You ought to know that.”

“But it’s a boy’s suit!”

“Of course. Did you think I was going to put on one of those skirt things to swim in? I have too much sense for that. I’m going swimming, not 

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