Not many spectators turn out for a meet between two minor women's swimming clubs, and this one was no exception. Louis Connaught, looking up at the balcony, thought casually that the single row of seats around it was about half-full, mostly with the usual bored-looking assortment of husbands and boy friends, and some of the Hotel Creston's guests who had wandered in for want of anything better to do. One of the bellboys was asking an evening-gowned female not to smoke, and she was showing irritation. Mr. Santalucia and the little Santalucias were there as usual to see mamma perform. They waved down at Connaught.
Connaught—a dark devilish-looking little man—glanced over to the other side of the pool. The girls were coming out of the shower rooms, and their shrill conversation was blurred by the acoustics of the pool room into a continuous buzz. The air was faintly steamy. The stout party in white duck pants was Laird, coach of the Knickerbockers and Connaught's arch rival. He saw Connaught and boomed: "Hi, Louie!" The words rattled from wall to wall with a sound like a stick being drawn swiftly along a picket fence. Wambach of the A. A. U. Committee, who was refereeing, came in with his overcoat still on and greeted Laird, but the booming reverberations drowned his words before they got over to Connaught.
Then somebody else came through the door; or rather, a knot of people crowded through it all at once, facing inward, some in bathing suits and some in street clothes. It was a few seconds before Coach Connaught saw what they were looking at. He blinked and looked more closely, standing with his mouth half-open.
But not for long. "Hey!" he yelled in a voice that made the pool room sound like the inside of a snare drum in use. "Protest! PROTEST! You can't do that!"
It had been the preceding evening when Herbert Laird opened his front door and shouted, "H'lo, Mark, come on in." The chill March wind was making a good deal of racket but not so much as all that. Laird was given to shouting on general principles. He was stocky and bald.
Mark Vining came in and deposited his brief case. He was younger than Laird—just thirty, in fact—with octagonal glasses and rather thin severe features, which made him look more serious than he was.
"Glad you could come, Mark," said Laird. "Listen, can you make our meet with the Crestons tomorrow night?"
Vining pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I guess so. Loomis decided not to appeal, so I don't have to work nights for a few days anyhow. Is something special up?"
Laird looked sly. "Maybe. Listen, you know that Mrs. Santalucia that Louis Connaught has been cleaning up with for the past couple of years? I think I've got that fixed. But I want you along to think up legal reasons why my scheme's okay."
"Why," said Vining cautiously, "what's you scheme?"
"Can't tell you now. I promised not to. But if Louie can win by entering a freak—a woman with webbed fingers—"
"Oh, look here, Herb, you know those webs don't really help her—"
"Yes, yes, I know all the arguments. You've already got more water resistance to your arms than you've got muscle to overcome it with, and so forth. But I know Mrs. Santalucia has webbed fingers, and I know she's the best damned woman swimmer in New York. And I don't like it. It's bad for my prestige as a coach." He turned and shouted into the gloom: "Iantha!"
"Yes?"
"Come here, will you please? I want you to meet my friend Mr.Vining. Here, we need some light."
The light showed the living room as usual buried under disorderly piles of boxes of bathing suits and other swimming equipment, the sale of which furnished Herbert Laird with most of his income. It also showed a young woman coming in in a wheelchair.
One look gave Vining a feeling that, he knew, boded no good for him. He was unfortunate in being a pushover for any reasonably attractive girl and at the same time being cursed with an almost pathological shyness where women were concerned. The fact that both he and Laird were bachelors and took their swimming seriously were the main ties between them.
This girl was more than reasonably attractive. She was, thought the dazzled Vining, a wow, a ten-strike, a direct sixteen-inch hit. Her smooth, rather flat features and high cheekbones had a hint of Asian or American Indian and went oddly with her light-gold hair, which, Vining could have sworn, had a faint greenish tinge. A blanket was wrapped around her legs.
He came out of his trance as Laird introduced the exquisite creature as "Miss Delfoiros."
Miss Delfoiros did not seem exactly overcome. As she extended her hand, she said with a noticeable accent: "You are not from the newspapers, Mr. Vining?"
"No," said Vining. "Just a lawyer, I specialize in wills and probates and things. Not thinking of drawing up yours, are you?"
She relaxed visibly and laughed. "No. I 'ope I shall not need one for a long, long time."
"Still," said Vining seriously, "you never know—"
Laird bellowed: "Wonder what's keeping that sister of mine. Dinner ought to be ready. Martha!" He marched out, and Vining heard Miss Laird's voice, something about "—but Herb, I had to let those things cool down—"
Vining wondered with a great wonder what he should say to Miss Delfoiros. Finally he said, "Smoke?"
"Oh, no, thank you very much. I do not do it."
"Mind if I do?"
"No, not at all."
"Whereabouts do you hail from?" Vining thought the questions sounded both brusque and silly. He never did get the hang of talking easily under these circumstances.
"Oh, I am from Kip—Cyprus, I mean. You know, the island."
"Will you be at this swimming meet?"
"Yes, I think so."
"You don't"—he lowered his voice—"know what scheme Herb's got up his sleeve to beat La Santalucia?"
"Yes . . . no . . . I do not . . . what I mean is, I must not tell."
More mystery, thought Vining. What he really wanted to know was why she was confined to a wheelchair; whether the cause was temporary or permanent. But you couldn't ask a person right out, and he was still trying to concoct a leading question when Laird's bellow wafted in: "All right, folks, soup's on!" Vining would have pushed the wheelchair in, but before he had a chance, the girl had spun the chair around and was halfway to the dining room.
Vining said: "Hello, Martha, how's the schoolteaching business?" But he was not really paying much attention to Laird's capable spinster sister. He was gauping at Miss Delfoiros, who was quite calmly emptying a teaspoonful of salt into her water glass and stirring.
"What . . . what?" he gulped.
"I 'ave to," she said. "Fresh water makes me—like what you call drunk."
"Listen, Mark!" roared his friend. "Are you sure you can be there on time tomorrow night? There are some questions of eligibility to be cleared up, and I'm likely to need you badly."
"Will Miss Delfoiros be there?" Vining grinned, feeling very foolish inside.
"Oh, sure. Iantha's our . . . say, listen, you know that little eighteen-year-old Clara Havranek? She did the hundred in one-oh-five yesterday. She's championship material. We'll clean the Creston Club yet—" He went on, loud and fast, about what he was going to do to Louie Connaught's girls. The while, Mark Vining tried to concentrate on his own food, which was good, and on Iantha Delfoiros, who was charming but evasive.
There seemed to be something special about Miss Delfoiros' food, to judge by the way Martha Laird had served it. Vining looked closely and saw that it had the peculiarly dead and clammy look that a dinner once hot but now cold has. He asked about it.
"Yes," she said, "I like it cold."
"You mean you don't eat anything hot?"
She made a face. " 'Ot food? No, I do not like it. To us it is—"
"Listen, Mark! I hear the W.S.A. is going to throw a postseason meet in April for novices only—"
Vining's dessert lay before him a full minute before he noticed it. He was too busy thinking how delightful Miss Delfoiros' accent was.
When dinner was over, Laird said, "Listen, Mark, you know something about these laws against owning gold? Well, look here—" He led the way to a candy box on a table in the living room. The box contained, not candy, but gold and silver coins. Laird handed the lawyer several of them. The first one he examined was a silver crown, bearing the inscription "Carolus II Dei Gra" encircling the head of England's Merry Monarch with a wreath in his hair—or, more probably, in his wig. The second was an eighteenth-century Spanish dollar. The third was a Louis d'Or.
"I didn't know you went in for coin collecting, Herb," said Vining. "I suppose these are all genuine?"
"They're genuine all right. But I'm not collecting 'em. You might say I'm taking 'em in trade. I have a chance to sell ten thousand bathing caps, if I can take payment in those things."
"I shouldn't think the U. S. Rubber Company would like the idea much."
"That's just the point. What'll I do with 'em after I get 'em? Will the government put me in jail for having 'em?"
"You needn't worry about that. I don't think the law covers old coins, though I'll look it up to make sure. Better call up the American Numismatic Society—they're in the 'phone book—and they can tell you how to dispose of them. But look here, what the devil is this? Ten thousand bathing caps to be paid for in pieces-of-eight? I never heard of such a thing."
"That's it exactly. Just ask the little lady here." Laird turned to Iantha, who was nervously trying to signal him to keep quiet. "The deal's her doing."
"I did . . . did—" She looked as if she were going to cry. " 'Erbert, you should not have said that. You see," she said to Vining, "we do not like to 'ave a lot to do with people. Always it causes us troubles."
"Who," asked Vining, "do you mean by 'we'?"
She shut her mouth obstinately. Vining almost melted, but his legal instincts came to the surface. If you don't get a grip on yourself, he thought, you'll be in love with her in another five minutes, and that might be a disaster. He said firmly:
"Herb, the more I see of this business, the crazier it looks. Whatever's going on, you seem to be trying to get me into it. But I'm damned if I'll let you unless I know what it's all about."
"Might as well tell him, Iantha," said Laird. "He'll know when he sees you swim tomorrow, anyhow."
She said: "You will not tell the newspaper men, Mr. Vining?"
"No, I won't say anything to anybody."
"You promise?"
"Of course. You can depend on a lawyer to keep things under his hat."
"Under his—I suppose you mean not to tell. So, look." She reached down and pulled up the lower end of the blanket.
Vining looked. Where he expected to see feet, there was a pair of horizontal flukes, like those of a porpoise.
Louis Connaught's having kittens, when he saw what his rival coach had sprung on him, can thus be easily explained. First he doubted his own senses; then he doubted whether there was any justice in the world.
Meanwhile, Mark Vining proudly pushed Iantha's wheelchair in among the cluster of judges and timekeepers at the starting end of the pool. Iantha herself, in a bright green bathing cap, held her blanket around her shoulders, but the slate-gray tail with its flukes was plain for all to see. The skin of the tail was smooth and the flukes were horizontal; artists who show mermaids with scales and a vertical tail fin, like a fish's, simply do not know their zoology.
"All right, all right," bellowed Laird. "Don't crowd around. Everybody get back to where they belong. Everybody, please."
One of the spectators, leaning over the rail of the balcony to see, dropped a fountain pen into the pool. One of Connaught's girls, a Miss Black, dove in after it.
Ogden Wambach, the referee, poked a finger at the skin of the tail. He was a well-groomed, gray-haired man.
"Laird," he said, "is this a joke?"
"Not at all. She's entered in the back stroke and all the free styles, just like any other club member. She's even registered with the A.A.U."
"But . . . but . . . I mean, is it alive? Is it real?"
Iantha spoke up. "Why do you not ask me those questions, Mr. . . . Mr. . . . I do not know you—"
"Good grief," said Wambach. "It talks! I'm the referee, Miss—"
"Delfoiros. Iantha Delfoiros."
"My word. Upon my word. That means—let's see—Violet Porpoise-tail, doesn't it? Delphis plus oura—"
"You know Greek? Oh, 'ow nice!" She broke into a string of dimotiki.
Wambach gulped a little. "Too fast for me, I'm afraid. And that's modern Greek, isn't it?"
"Why, yes. I am modern, am I not?"
"Dear me. I suppose so. But is that tail really real? I mean, it's not just a piece of costumery?"
"Oh, but yes." Iantha threw off the blanket and waved her flukes. Everyone in the pool seemed to have turned into a pair of eyeballs to which a body and a pair of legs was vaguely attached.
"Dear me," said Ogden Wambach. "Where are my glasses? You understand, I just want to make sure there's nothing spurious about this."
Mrs. Santalucia, a muscular-looking lady with a visible mustache and fingers webbed down to the first joint, said, "You mean I gotta swim against her?"
Louis Connaught had been sizzling like a dynamite fuse. "You can't do it!" he shrilled. "This is a woman's meet! I protest!"
"So what?" said Laird.
"But you can't enter a fish in a woman's swimming meet! Can you, Mr. Wambach?"
Mark Vining spoke up. He had just taken a bunch of papers clipped together out of his pocket, and was running through them.
"Miss Delfoiros," he asserted, "is not a fish. She's a mammal."
"How do you figure that?" yelled Connaught.
"Look at her."
"Um-m-m," said Ogden Wambach. "I see what you mean."
"But," howled Connaught, "she still ain't human!"
"There is a question about that, Mr. Vining," said Wambach.
"No question at all. There's nothing in the rules against entering a mermaid, and there's nothing that says the competitors have to be human."
Connaught was hopping about like an overwrought cricket. He was now waving a copy of the current A.A.U. swimming, diving, and water polo rules. "I still protest! Look here! All through here it only talks about two kinds of meets, men's and women's. She ain't a woman, and she certainly ain't a man. If the Union had wanted to have meets for mermaids they'd have said so."
"Not a woman?" asked Vining in a manner that juries learned meant a rapier thrust at an opponent. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Connaught. I looked the question up." He frowned at his sheaf of papers. "Webster's International Dictionary, Second Edition, defines a woman as 'any female person.' And it further defines 'person' as 'a being characterized by conscious apprehension, rationality, and a moral sense.'" He turned to Wambach. "Sir, I think you'll agree that Miss Delfoiros has exhibited conscious apprehension and rationality during her conversation with you, won't you?"
"My word . . . I really don't know what to say, Mr. Vining . . . I suppose she has, but I couldn't say—"
Horwitz, the scorekeeper, spoke up. "You might ask her to give the multiplication table." Nobody paid him any attention.
Connaught exhibited symptoms of apoplexy. "But you can't—What the hell you talking about—conscious ap-ap—"
"Please, Mr.Connaught!" said Wambach. "When you shout that way I can't understand you because of the echoes."
Connaught mastered himself with a visible effort. Then he looked crafty. "How do I know she's got a moral sense?"
Vining turned to Iantha. "Have you ever been in jail, Iantha?"
Iantha laughed. "What a funny question, Mark! But of course, I have not."
"That's what she says," sneered Connaught. "How you gonna prove it?"
"We don't have to," said Vining loftily. "The burden of proof is on the accuser, and the accused is legally innocent until proved guilty. That principle was well established by the time of King Edward the First."
"Oh, damn King Edward the First," cried Connaught. "That wasn't the kind of moral sense I meant anyway. How about what they call moral turp-turp—You know what I mean."
"Hey," growled Laird, "what's the idea? Are you trying to cast—What's the word, Mark?"
"Aspersions?"
"—cast aspersions on one of my swimmers? You watch out, Louie. If I hear you be—What's the word, Mark?"
"Besmirching her fair name?"
"—besmirching her fair name, I'll drown you in your own tank."
"And after that," said Vining, "we'll slap a suit on you for slander."
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" said Wambach. "Let's not have any more personalities, please. This is a swimming meet, not a lawsuit. Let's get to the point."
"We've made ours," said Vining with dignity. "We've shown that Iantha Delfoiros is a woman, and Mr. Connaught has stated, himself, that this is a woman's meet. Therefore, Miss Delfoiros is eligible. Q.E.D."
"Ahem," said Wambach. "I don't quite know—I never had a case like this to decide before."
Louis Connaught almost had tears in his eyes; at least he sounded as if he did. "Mr. Wambach, you can't let Herb Laird do this to me. I'll be a laughingstock."
Laird snorted. "How about your beating me with your Mrs. Santalucia? I didn't get any sympathy from you when people laughed at me on account of that. And how much good did it do me to protest against her fingers?"
"But," wailed Connaught, "if he can enter this Miss Delfoiros, what's to stop somebody from entering a trained sea lion or something? Do you want to make competitive swimming into a circus?"
Laird grinned. "Go ahead, Louie. Nobody's stopping you from entering anything you like. How about it, Ogden? Is she a woman?"
"Well . . . really . . . oh, dear—"
"Please!" Iantha Delfoiros rolled her violet-blue eyes at the bewildered referee. "I should so like to swim in this nice pool with all these nice people!"
Wambach sighed. "All right, my dear, you shall!"
"Whoopee!" cried Laird, the cry being taken up by Vining, the members of the Knickerbocker Swimming Club, the other officials, and lastly the spectators. The noise in the inclosed space made sensitive eardrums wince.
"Wait a minute," yelped Connaught when the echoes had died. "Look here, page 19 of the rules. 'Regulation Costume, Women: Suits must be of dark color, with skirt attached. Leg is to reach—' and so forth. Right here it says it. She can't swim the way she is, not in a sanctioned meet."
"That's true," said Wambach. "Let's see—"
Horwitz looked up from his little score-sheet littered table. "Maybe one of the girls has a halter she could borrow," he suggested. "That would be something."
"Halter, phooey!" snapped Connaught. "This means a regular suit with legs and a skirt, and everybody knows it."
"But she hasn't got any legs!" cried Laird. "How could she get into—"
"That's just the point! If she can't wear a suit with legs, and the rules say you gotta have legs, she can't wear the regulation suit, and she can't compete! I gotcha that time! Ha-ha, I'm sneering!"
"I'm afraid not, Louie," said Vining, thumbing his own copy of the rule-book. He held it up to the light and read: '"Note.—These rules are approximate, the idea being to bar costumes which are immodest, or will attract undue attention and comment. The referee shall have the power'—et cetera, et cetera. If we cut the legs out of a regular suit, and she pulled the rest of it on over her head, that would be modest enough for all practical purposes. Wouldn't it, Mr. Wambach?"
"Dear me—I don't know—I suppose it would."
Laird hissed to one of his pupils, "Hey, listen, Miss Havranek! You know where my suitcase is? Well, you get one of the extra suits out of it, and there's a pair of scissors in with the first-aid things. You fix that suit up so Iantha can wear it."
Connaught subsided. "I see now," he said bitterly, "why you guys wanted to finish with a 300-yard free style instead of a relay. If I'd 'a' known what you were planning—and, you, Mark Vining, if I ever get in a jam, I'll go to jail before I hire you for a lawyer, so help me!"
Mrs. Santalucia had been glowering at Iantha Delfoiros. Suddenly she turned to Connaught. "Thissa no fair. I swim against people. I no-gotta swim against mermaids."
"Please, Maria, don't you desert me," wailed Connaught.
"I no swim tonight."
Connaught looked up appealingly to the balcony. Mr. Santalucia and the little Santalucias, guessing what was happening, burst into a chorus of: "Go on, mamma! You show them, mamma!"
"Aw right. I swim one, maybe two races. If I see I no got a chance, I no swim no more."
"That's better, Maria. It wouldn't really count if she beat you anyway." Connaught headed for the door, saying something about "telephone" on the way.
Despite the delays in starting the meet, nobody left the pool room through boredom. In fact, the empty seats in the balcony were full by this time and people were standing up behind them. Word had gotten around the Hotel Creston that something was up.
By the time Louis Connaught returned, Laird and Vining were pulling the altered bathing suit on over Iantha's head. It did not reach quite so far as they expected, having been designed for a slightly slimmer swimmer. Not that Iantha was fat. But her human part, if not exactly plump, was at least comfortably upholstered, so that no bones showed. Iantha squirmed around in the suit a good deal and threw a laughing remark in Greek to Wambach, whose expression showed that he hoped it did not mean what he suspected it did.
Laird said, "Now listen, Iantha, remember not to move till the gun goes off. And remember that you swim directly over the black line on the bottom, not between two lines."
"Are they going to shoot a gun? Oh, I am afraid of shooting!"
"It's nothing to be afraid of; just blank cartridges. They don't hurt anybody. And it won't be so loud inside that cap."
"Herb," said Vining, "won't she lose time getting off, not being able to make a flat dive like the others?"
"She will. But it won't matter. She can swim a mile in four minutes, without really trying."
Ritchey, the starter, announced the fifty-yard free style. He called: "All right, everybody, line up."
Iantha slithered off her chair and crawled over to the starting platform. The other girls were all standing with feet together, bodies bent forward at the hips and arms pointing backward. Iantha got into a curious position of her own, with her tail bent under her and her weight resting on her hand and flukes.
"Hey! Protest!" shouted Connaught. "The rules say that all races, except back strokes, are started with dives. What kind of a dive do you call that?"
"Oh, dear," said Wambach. "What—"
"That," said Vining urbanely, "is a mermaid dive. You couldn't expect her to stand upright on her tail."
"But that's just it!" cried Connaught. "First you enter a non-regulation swimmer. Then you put a non-regulation suit on her. Then you start her off with a non-regulation dive. Ain't there anything you guys do like other people?"
"But," said Vining, looking through the rule book, "it doesn't say—here it is. 'The start in all races shall be made with a dive.' But there's nothing in the rules about what kind of dive shall be used. And the dictionary defines a dive simply as 'a plunge into water.' So if you jump in feet first holding your nose, that's a dive for the purpose of the discussion. And in my years of watching swimming meets, I've seen some funnier starting dives than Miss Delfoiros'."
"I suppose he's right," said Wambach.
"Okay, okay," snarled Connaught. "But the next time I have to meet with you and Herb, I bring a lawyer along too, see?"
Ritchey's gun went off. Vining noticed that Iantha flinched a little at the report and was perhaps slowed down a trifle in getting off by it. The other girls' bodies shot out horizontally to smack the water loudly, but Iantha slipped in with the smooth, unhurried motion of a diving seal. Lacking the advantage of feet to push off with, she was several yards behind the other swimmers before she really got started. Mrs. Santalucia had taken her usual lead, foaming along with the slow strokes of her webbed hands.
Iantha did not bother to come to the surface except at the turn, where she had been specifically ordered to come up so that the judge of the turns would not raise arguments as to whether she had touched the end, and at the finish. She hardly used her arms at all, except for an occasional flip of her trailing hands to steer her. The swift up-and-down flutter of the powerful tail flukes sent her through the water like a torpedo, her wake appearing on the surface six or eight feet behind her. As she shot through the as yet unruffled waters at the far end of the pool on the first leg, Vining, who had gone around to the side to watch, noticed that she had the power of closing her nostrils tightly under water, like a seal or a hippopotamus.
Mrs. Santalucia finished the race in the very creditable time of 29.8 seconds. But Iantha Delfoiros arrived, not merely first, but in the time of 8.0 seconds. At the finish she did not reach up to touch the starting platform and then hoist herself out by her arms the way human swimmers do. She simply angled up sharply, left the water like a leaping trout, and came down with a moist smack on the concrete, almost bowling over a timekeeper. By the time the other contestants had completed the turn she was sitting on the platform with her tail curled under her. As the girls foamed laboriously down the final leg, she smiled dazzlingly at Vining, who had had to run to be in at the finish.
"That," she said, "was much fun, Mark. I am so glad you and 'Erbert put me in these races."
Mrs. Santalucia climbed out and walked over to Horwitz's table. That young man was staring in disbelief at the figures he had just written.
"Yes," he said, "that's what it says. Miss Iantha Delfoiros, 8.0; Mrs. Maria Santalucia, 29.8. Please don't drip on my score sheets, lady. Say, Wambach, isn't this a world's record or something?"
"My word!" said Wambach. "It's less than half the existing short-course record. Less than a third, maybe; I'd have to check it. Dear me! I'll have to take it up with the Committee. I don't know whether they'd allow it; I don't think they will, even though there isn't any specific rule against mermaids."
Vining spoke up. "I think we've complied with all the requirements to have records recognized, Mr. Wambach. Miss Delfoiros was entered in advance like all the others."
"Yes, yes, Mr. Vining, but don't you see, a record's a serious matter? No ordinary human being could ever come near a time like that."
"Unless he used an outboard motor," said Connaught. "If you allow contestants to use tail fins like Miss Delfoiros, you oughta let 'em use propellers. I don't see why these guys should be the only ones to be let bust rules all over the place, and then think up lawyer arguments why it's okay. I'm gonna get me a lawyer, too."
"That's all right, Odgen," said Laird. "You take it up with the Committee, but we don't really care much about the records anyway, so long as we can lick Louie here." He smiled indulgently at Connaught, who sputtered with fury.
"I no swim," announced Mrs. Santalucia. "This is all crazy business. I no got a chance."
"Now, Maria," said Connaught, taking her aside, "just once more, won't you please? My reputation—" The rest of his words were drowned in the general reverberation of the pool room. But at the end of them the redoubtable female appeared to have given in to his entreaties.
The hundred-yard free style started in much the same manner as the fifty-yard. Iantha did not flinch at the gun this time and got off to a good start. She skimmed along just below the surface, raising a wake like a tuna clipper. These waves confused the swimmer in the adjacent lane, who happened to be Mrs. Breitenfeld of the Creston Club. As a result, on her first return leg, Iantha met Miss Breitenfeld swimming athwart her—Iantha's—lane, and rammed the unfortunate girl amidships. Miss Breitenfeld went down without even a gurgle, spewing bubbles.
Connaught shrieked: "Foul! Foul!" although in the general uproar it sounded like "Wow! Wow!" Several swimmers who were not racing dove in to the rescue, and the race came to a stop in general confusion and pandemonium. When Miss Breitenfeld was hauled out, it was found that she had merely had the wind knocked out of her and had swallowed considerable water.
Mark Vining, looking around for Iantha, found her holding on to the edge of the pool and shaking her head. Presently she crawled out, crying:
"Is she 'urt? Is she 'urt? Oh, I am so sorree! I did not think there would be anybody in my lane, so I did not look ahead."
"See?" yelled Connaught. "See, Wambach? See what happens? They ain't satisfied to walk away with the races with their fish-woman. No, they gotta try to cripple my swimmers by butting their slats in. Herb," he went on nastily, "why dontcha get a pet swordfish? Then when you rammed one of my poor girls she'd be out of competition for good!"
"Oh," said Iantha, "I did not mean—it was an accident!"
"Accident my foot!"
"But it was. Mr. Referee, I do not want to bump people. My 'ead 'urts, and my neck also. You think I try to break my neck on purpose?" Iantha's altered suit had crawled up under her armpits, but nobody noticed particularly.
"Sure it was an accident," bellowed Laird. "Anybody could see that. And listen, if anybody was fouled it was Miss Delfoiros."
"Certainly," chimed in Vining. "She was in her own lane, and the other girl wasn't."
"Oh dear me," said Wambach. "I suppose they're right again. This'll have to be re-swum anyway. Does Miss Breitenfeld want to compete?"
Miss Breitenfeld did not, but the others lined up again. This time the race went off without untoward incident. Iantha again made a spectacular leaping finish, just as the other three swimmers were halfway down the second of their four legs.
When Mrs. Santalucia emerged this time, she said to Connaught: "I no swim no more. That is final."
"Oh, but Maria—" It got him nowhere. Finally he said, "Will you swim in the races that she don't enter?"
"Is there any?"
"I think so. Hey, Horwitz, Miss Delfoiros ain't entered in the breast stroke, is she?"
Horwitz looked. "No, she isn't," he said.
"That's something. Say, Herb, how come you didn't put your fish-woman in the breast stroke?"
Vining answered for Laird. "Look at your rules, Louie. 'The feet shall be drawn up simultaneously, the knees bent and open,' et cetera. The rules for back stroke and free style don't say anything about how the legs shall be used, but those for breast stroke do. So no legs, no breast stroke. We aren't giving you a chance to make any legitimate protests."
"Legitimate protests!" Connaught turned away, sputtering.
While the dives were being run off, Vining, watching, became aware of an ethereal melody. First he thought it was in his head. Then he was sure it was coming from one of the spectators. He finally located the source; it was Iantha Delfoiros, sitting in her wheelchair and singing softly. By leaning nearer he could make out the words:
"Die schoenste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort ober wunderbar;
Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet;
Sie kaemmt ihr goldenes Haar."
Vining went over quietly. "Iantha," he said. "Pull your bathing suit down, and don't sing."
She complied, looking up at him with a giggle. "But that is a nice song! I learn it from a wrecked German sailor. It is about one of my people."
"I know, but it'll distract the judges. They have to watch the dives closely, and the place is too noisy as it is."
"Such a nice man you are, Mark, but so serious!" She giggled again.
Vining wondered at the subtle change in the mermaid's manner. Then a horrible thought struck him.
"Herb!" he whispered. "Didn't she say something last night about getting drunk on fresh water?"
Laird looked up. "Yes. She—My God, the water in the pool's fresh! I never thought of that. Is she showing signs?"
"I think she is."
"Listen, Mark, what'll we do?"
"I don't know. She's entered in two more events, isn't she? Back stroke and 300-yard free style?"
"Yes."
"Well, why not withdraw her from the back stroke, and give her a chance to sober up before the final event?"
"Can't. Even with all her firsts, we aren't going to win by any big margin. Louie has the edge on us in the dives, and Mrs. Santalucia'll win the breast stroke. In the events Iantha's in, if she takes first and Louie's girls take second and third, that means five points for us but four for him, so we have an advantage of only one point. And her world's record time don't give us any more points."
"Guess we'll have to keep her in and take a chance," said Vining glumly.
Iantha's demeanor was sober enough in lining up for the back stroke. Again she lost a fraction of a second in getting started by not having feet to push off with. But once she got started, the contest was even more one-sided than the free-style races had been. The human part of her body was practically out of water, skimming the surface like the front half of a speedboat. She made paddling motions with her arms, but that was merely for technical reasons; the power was all furnished by the flukes. She did not jump out on to the starting-platform this time; for a flash Vining's heart almost stopped as the emerald-green bathing cap seemed about to crash into the tiles at the end of the pool. But Iantha had judged the distance to a fraction of an inch, and braked to a stop with her flukes just before striking.
The breast stroke was won easily by Mrs. Santalucia, although her slow, plodding stroke was less spectacular than the butterfly of her competitors. The shrill cheers of the little Santalucias could be heard over the general hubbub. When the winner climbed out, she glowered at Iantha and said to Connaught:
"Louie, if you ever put me in a meet wit' mermaids again, I no swim for you again, never. Now I go home." With which she marched off to the shower room.
Ritchey was just about to announce the final event, the 300-yard free style, when Connaught plucked his sleeve. "Jack," he said, "wait a second. One of my swimmers is gonna be delayed a coupla minutes." He went out a door.
Laird said to Vining: "Wonder what Louie's grinning about. He's got something nasty, I bet. He was 'phoning earlier, you remember."
"We'll soon see—What's that?" A hoarse bark wafted in from somewhere and rebounded from the walls.
Connaught reappeared carrying two buckets. Behind him was a little round man in three sweaters. Behind the little round man gallumped a glossy California sea lion. At the sight of the gently rippling, jade-green pool, the animal barked joyously and skidded into the water, swam swiftly about, and popped out on the landing platform, barking. The bark had a peculiarly nerve-racking effect in the echoing pool room.
Ogden Wambach seized two handfuls of his sleek gray hair and tugged. "Connaught!" he shouted. "What is that?"
"Oh, that's just one of my swimmers, Mr. Wambach."
"Hey, listen!" rumbled Laird. "We're going to protest this time. Miss Delfoiros is at least a woman, even if she's a kind of peculiar one. But you can't call that a woman."
Connaught grinned like Satan looking over a new shipment of sinners. "Didn't you just say to go ahead and enter a sea lion if I wanted to?"
"I don't remember saying—"
"Yes, Herbert," said Wambach, looking haggard. "You did say it. There didn't used to be any trouble in deciding whether a swimmer was a woman or not. But now that you've brought in Miss Delfoiros, there doesn't seem to be any place we can draw a line."
"But look here, Ogden, there is such a thing as going too far—"
"That's just what I said about you!" shrilled Connaught.
Wambach took a deep breath. "Let's not shout, please. Herbert, technically you may have an argument. But after we allowed Miss Delfoiros to enter, I think it would be only sporting to let Louie have his seal. Especially after you told him to get one if he could."
Vining spoke up. "Oh, we're always glad to do the sporting thing. But I'm afraid the sea lion wasn't entered at the beginning of the meet as is required by the rules. We don't want to catch hell from the Committee—"
"Oh, yes, she was," said Connaught. "See!" He pointed to one of Horwitz's sheets. "Her name's Alice Black, and here it is."
"But," protested Vining, "I thought that was Alice Black."
He pointed to a slim dark girl in a bathing suit who was sitting on a window ledge.
"It is," grinned Connaught. "It's just a coincidence that they both got the same name."
"You don't expect us to believe that?"
"I don't care whether you believe or not. It's so. Ain't the sea lion's name Alice Black?" He turned to the little fat man, who nodded.
"Let it pass," moaned Wambach. "We can't take time off to get this animal's birth certificate."
"Well, then," said Vining, "how about the regulation suit? Maybe you'd like to try to put a suit on your sea lion?"
"Don't have to. She's got one already. It grows on her. Yah, yah, yah, gotcha that time."
"I suppose," said Wambach, "that you could consider a natural sealskin pelt as equivalent to a bathing suit."
"Sure you could. That's the point. Anyway, the idea of suits is to be modest, and nobody gives a damn about a seal lion's modesty."
Vining made a final point. "You refer to the animal as 'her,' but how do we know it's a female? Even Mr. Wambach wouldn't let you enter a male sea lion in a women's meet."
Wambach spoke: "How do you tell on a sea lion?"
Connaught looked at the little fat man. "Well, maybe we had better not go into that here. How would it be if I put up a ten-dollar bond that Alice is a female, and you checked on her sex later?"
"That seems fair," said Wambach.
Vining and Laird looked at each other. "Shall we let 'em get away with that, Mark?" asked the latter.
Vining rocked on his heels for a few seconds. Then he said, "I think we might as well. Can I see you outside a minute. Herb? You people don't mind holding up the race a couple of minutes more, do you? We'll be right back."
Connaught started to protest about further delay but thought better of it. Laird presently reappeared, looking unwontedly cheerful.
"'Erbert!" said Iantha.
"Yes?" he put his head down.
"I'm afraid—"
"You're afraid Alice might bite you in the water? Well, I wouldn't want that—"
"Oh, no, not afraid that way. Alice, poof! If she gets nasty I give her one with the tail. But I am afraid she can swim faster than me."
"Listen, Iantha, you just go ahead and swim the best you can. Twelve legs, remember. And don't be surprised, no matter what happens."
"What you two saying?" asked Connaught suspiciously.
"None of your business, Louie. Whatcha got in that pail? Fish? I see how you're going to work this. Wanta give up and concede the meet now?"
Connaught merely snorted.
The only competitors in the 300-yard free-style race were Iantha Delfoiros and the sea lion, allegedly named Alice. The normal members of both clubs declared that nothing would induce them to get into the pool with the animal. Not even the importance of collecting a third-place point would move them.
Iantha got into her usual starting position. Beside her, the little round man maneuvered Alice, holding her by an improvised leash made of a length of rope. At the far end, Connaught had placed himself and one of the buckets.
Ritchey fired his gun; the little man slipped the leash and said: "Go get 'em, Alice!" Connaught took a fish out of his bucket and waved it. But Alice, frightened by the shot, set up a furious barking and stayed where she was. Not till Iantha had almost reached the far end of the pool did Alice sight the fish at the other end. Then she slid off and shot down the water like a streak. Those who have seen sea lions merely loafing about a pool in a zoo or aquarium have no conception of how fast they can go when they try. Fast as the mermaid was, the sea lion was faster. She made two bucking jumps out of water before she arrived and oozed out onto the concrete. One gulp and the fish had vanished.
Alice spotted the bucket and tried to get her head into it. Connaught fended her off as best he could with his feet. At the starting end, the little round man had taken a fish out of the other bucket and was waving, it, calling: "Here Alice!"
Alice did not get the idea until Iantha had finished her second leg. Then she made up for lost time.
The same trouble occurred at the starting end of the pool; Alice failed to see why she should swim twenty-five yards for a fish when there were plenty of them a few feet away. The result was that, at the halfway-mark, Iantha was two legs ahead. But then Alice caught on. She caught up with and passed Iantha in the middle of her eighth leg, droozling out of the water at each end long enough to gulp a fish and then speeding down to the other end. In the middle of the tenth leg, she was ten yards ahead of the mermaid.
At that point, Mark Vining appeared through the door, running. In each hand he held a bowl of goldfish by the edge. Behind him came Miss Havranek and Miss Tufts, also of the Knickerbockers, both similarly burdened. The guests of the Hotel Creston had been mildly curious when a dark, severe-looking young man and two girls in bathing suits had dashed into the lobby and made off with the six bowls. But they had been too well-bred to inquire directly about the rape of the goldfish.
Vining ran down the side of the pool to a point near the far end. There he extended his arms and inverted the bowls. Water and fish cascaded into the pool. Miss Havranek and Miss Tufts did likewise at other points along the edge of the pool.
Results were immediate. The bowls had been large, and each had contained about six or eight fair-sized goldfish. The forty-odd bright-colored fish, terrified by their rough handling, darted hither and thither about the pool, or at least went as fast as their inefficient build would permit them.
Alice, in the middle of her ninth leg, angled off sharply. Nobody saw her snatch the fish; one second it was there, and the next it was not. Alice doubled with a swirl of flippers and shot diagonally across the pool. Another fish vanished. Forgotten were her master and Louis Connaught and their buckets. This was much more fun. Meanwhile, Iantha finished her race, narrowly avoiding a collision with the sea lion on her last leg.
Connaught hurled the fish he was holding as far as he could. Alice snapped it up and went on hunting. Connaught ran toward the starting-platform, yelling: "Foul! Foul! Protest! Protest! Foul! Foul!"
He arrived to find the timekeepers comparing watches on Iantha's swim, Laird and Vining doing a kind of war dance, and Ogden Wambach looking like the March Hare on the twenty-eighth of February.
"Stop!" cried the referee. "Stop, Louie! If you shout like that you'll drive me mad! I'm almost mad now! I know what you're going to say."
"Well . . . well . . . why don't you do something, then? Why don't you tell these crooks where to head in? Why don't you have 'em expelled from the Union? Why don't you—"
"Relax, Louie," said Vining. "We haven't done anything illegal."
'"What? Why, you dirty—"
"Easy, easy." Vining looked speculatively at his fist. The little man followed his glance and quieted somewhat. "There's nothing in the rules about putting fish into a pool. Intelligent swimmers, like Miss Delfoiros, know enough to ignore them when they're swimming a race."
"But—what—why you—"
Vining walked off, leaving the two coaches and the referee to fight it out. He looked for Iantha. She was sitting on the edge of the pool, paddling in the water with her flukes. Beside her were four feebly flopping goldfish laid out in a row on the tiles. As he approached, she picked one up and put the front end of it in her mouth. There was a flash of pearly teeth and a spasmodic flutter of the fish's tail, and the front half of the fish was gone. The other half followed immediately.
At that instant Alice spotted the three remaining fish. The sea lion had cleaned out the pool and was now slithering around on the concrete, barking and looking for more prey. She gallumped past Vining toward the mermaid.
Iantha saw her coming. The mermaid hoisted her tail out of the water, pivoted where she sat, swung the tail up in a curve, and brought the flukes down on the sea lion's head with a loud spat. Vining, who was twenty feet off, could have sworn he felt the wind of the blow.
Alice gave a squawk of pain and astonishment and slithered away, shaking her head. She darted past Vining again, and for reasons best known to herself hobbled over to the center of argument and bit Ogden Wambach in the leg. The referee screeched and climbed up on Horwitz's table.
"Hey," said the scorekeeper, "You're scattering my papers!"
"I still say they're publicity-hunting crooks!" yelled Connaught, waving his copy of the rule book at Wambach.
"Bunk!" bellowed Laird. "He's just sore because we can think up more stunts than he can. He started it, with his web-fingered woman."
"Damn your complaints!" screamed Wambach. "Damn your sea lions! Damn your papers! Damn your mermaids! Damn your web-fingered women! Damn your swimming clubs! Damn all of you! I'm going mad! You hear? Mad, mad, mad! One more word out of either of you and I'll have you suspended from the Union!"
"Ow, ow, ow!" barked Alice.
Iantha had finished her fish. She started to pull the bathing suit down again; changed her mind, pulled it off over her head, rolled it up, and threw it across the pool. Halfway across it unfolded and floated down onto the water. The mermaid then cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and, in a clear ringing soprano, launched into the heart-wrenching strains of:
"Rheingold!
Reines Gold,
Wie lauter und hell
Leuchtest hold du uns!
Um dich, du klares—"
"Iantha!"
"What is it, Markee?" she giggled.
"I said, it's getting time to go home!"
"Oh, but I do not want to go home. I am having much fun.
"Nun wir klagen!
Gebt uns das Gold—"
"No, really, Iantha, we've got to go." He laid a hand on her shoulder. The touch made his blood tingle. At the same time, it was plain that the remains of Iantha's carefully husbanded sobriety had gone. That last race in fresh water had been like three oversized Manhattans. Through Vining's head ran a paraphrase of an old song:
"What shall we do with a drunken mermaid
At three o'clock in the morning?"
"Oh, Markee, always you are so serious when people are 'aving fun. But if you say please I will come."
"Very well, please come. Here, put your arm around my neck, and I'll carry you to your chair."
Such, indeed was Mark Vining's intention. He got one hand around her waist and another under her tail. Then he tried to straighten up. He had forgotten that Iantha's tail was a good deal heavier than it looked. In fact, that long and powerful structure of bone, muscle, and cartilage ran the mermaid's total weight up to the surprising figure of over two hundred and fifty pounds. The result of his attempt was to send himself and his burden headlong into the pool. To the spectators it looked as though he had picked Iantha up and then deliberately dived in with her.
He came up and shook the water out of his head. Iantha popped up in front of him.
"So!" she gurgled. "You are 'aving fun with Iantha! I think you are serious, but you want to play games! All right, I show you!" She brought her palm down smartly, filling Vining's mouth and nose with water. He struck out blindly for the edge of the pool. He was a powerful swimmer, but his street clothes hampered him. Another splash cascaded over his luckless head. He got his eyes clear in time to see Iantha's head go down and her flukes up.
"Markeeee!" The voice was behind him. He turned, and saw Iantha holding a large black block of soft rubber. This object was a plaything for users of the Hotel Creston's pool, and it had been left lying on the bottom during the meet.
"Catch!" cried Iantha gaily, and let drive. The block took Vining neatly between the eyes.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the wet concrete. He sat up and sneezed. His head seemed to be full of ammonia. Louis Connaught put away the smelling-salts bottle, and Laird shoved a glass containing a snort of whiskey at him Beside him was Iantha, sitting on her curled tail. She was actually crying.
"Oh, Markee, you are not dead? You are all right? Oh, I am so sorry! I did not mean to 'it you."
"I'm all right, I guess," he said thickly. "Just an accident. Don't worry."
"Oh, I am so glad!" She grabbed his neck and gave it a hug that made its vertebrae creak alarmingly.
"Now," he said, "if I could dry out my clothes. Louie, could you—uh—"
"Sure," said Connaught, helping him up. "We'll put your clothes on the radiator in the men's shower room, and I can lend you a pair of pants and a sweatshirt while they're drying."
When Vining came out in his borrowed garments, he had to push his way through the throng that crowded the starting end of the pool room. He was relieved to note that Alice had disappeared. In the crowd, Iantha was holding court in her wheelchair. In front of her stood a large man in a dinner jacket and a black cloak, with his back to the pool.
"Permit me," he was saying. "I am Joseph Clement. Under my management, nothing you wished in the way of a dramatic or musical career would be beyond you. I heard you sing, and I know that with but little training, even the doors of the Metropolitan would fly open at your approach."
"No, Mr. Clement. It would be nice, but tomorrow I 'ave to leave for 'ome." She giggled.
"But my dear Miss Delfoiros—where is your home, if I may presume to ask?"
"Cyprus."
"Cyprus? Hm-m-m—let's see, where's that?"
"You do not know where Cyprus is? You are not a nice man. I do not like you. Go away."
"Oh, but my dear, dear Miss Del—"
"Go away, I said. Scram."
"But—"
Iantha's tail came up and lashed out, catching the cloaked man in the solar plexus.
Little Miss Havranek looked at her teammate Miss Tufts, as she prepared to make her third rescue of the evening. "Poisonally," she said, "I am getting damn sick of pulling dopes out of this pool."
The sky was just turning gray the next morning when Laird drove his huge old limousine out into the driveway of his house in the Bronx. The wind was driving a heavy rain almost horizontally.
He got out and helped Vining carry Iantha into the car. Vining got in the back with the mermaid. He spoke into the voice tube: "Jones Beach, Chauncey."
"Aye, aye, sir," came the reply. "Listen, Mark, you sure we remembered everything?"
"I made a list and checked it." He yawned. "I could have done with some more sleep last night. Are you sure you won't fall asleep at the wheel?"
"Listen, Mark, with all the coffee I got sloshing around in me, I won't get to sleep for a week."
"We certainly picked a nice time to leave."
"I know we did. In a coupla hours, the place'll be covered six deep with reporters. If it weren't for the weather, they might be arriving now. When they do, they'll find the horse has stolen the stable door—that isn't what I mean, but you get the idea. Listen, you better pull down some of those curtains until we get out on Long Island."
"Righto, Herb."
Iantha spoke up in a small voice. "Was I very bad last night when I was drunk, Mark?"
"Not very. At least, not worse than I'd be if I went swimming in a tank of sherry."
"I am so sorry—always I try to be nice, but the fresh water gets me out of my head. And that poor Mr. Clement, that I pushed in the water—"
"Oh, he's used to temperamental people. That's his business. But I don't know that it was such a good idea on the way home to stick your tail out of the car and biff that cop under the chin with it."
She giggled. "But he looked so surprised!"
"I'll say he did! But a surprised cop is sometimes a tough customer."
"Will that make trouble for you?"
"I don't think so. If he's a wise cop, he won't report it at all. You know how the report would read? 'Attacked by mermaid at corner Broadway and Ninety-eighth Street, 11:45 p.m.' And where did you learn the unexpurgated version of 'Barnacle Bill the Sailor'?"
"A Greek sponge diver I met in Florida told me. 'E is a friend of us mer-folk, and he taught me my first English. 'E used to joke me about my Cypriot accent when we talked Greek. It is a pretty song, is it not?"
"I don't think 'pretty' is exactly the word I'd use."
" 'Oo won the meet? I never did 'ear."
"Oh, Louie and Herb talked it over, and decided they'd both get so much publicity out of it that it didn't much matter. They're leaving it up to the A.A.U., who will get a first-class headache. For instance, we'll claim we didn't foul Alice, because Louie had already disqualified her by his calling and fish-waving. You see that's coaching, and coaching a competitor during an event is illegal.
"But look here, Iantha, why do you have to leave so abruptly?"
She shrugged. "My business with 'Erbert is over, and I promised to be back to Cyprus for my sister's baby being born."
"You don't lay eggs? But of course you don't. Didn't I just prove last night you are mammals?"
"Markee, what an idea! Anyway, I do not want to stay around. I like you and I like 'Erbert, but I do not like living on land. You just imagine living in water for yourself, and you get an idea. And if I stay, the newspapers come, and soon all New York knows about me. We mer-folk do not believe in letting the land men know about us."
"Why?"
"We used to be friends with them sometimes, and always it made trouble. And now they 'ave guns and go around shooting things a mile away, to collect them, my great-uncle was shot in the tail last year by some aviator man who thought he was a porpoise or something. We don't like being collected. So when we see a boat or an airplane coming, we duck down and swim away quick."
"I suppose," said Vining slowly, "that that's why there were plenty of reports of mer-folk up to a few centuries ago, and then they stopped, so that now people don't believe they exist."
"Yes. We are smart, and we can see as far as the land men can. So you do not catch us very often. That is why this business with 'Erbert, to buy ten thousand bathing caps for the mer- folk, 'as to be secret. Not even his company will know about it. But they will not care if they get their money. And we shall not 'ave to sit on rocks drying our 'air so much. Maybe later we can arrange to buy some good knives and spears the same way. They would be better than the shell things we use now."
"I suppose you get all these old coins out of wrecks?"
"Yes. I know of one just off—no, I must not tell you. If the land men know about a wreck, they come with divers. Of course, the very deep ones we do not care about, because we cannot dive down that far. We 'ave to come up for air, like a whale."
"How did Herb happen to suck you in on that swimming meet?"
"Oh, I promised him when he asked—when I did not know 'ow much what-you-call-it fuss there would be. When I found out, he would not let me go back on my promise. I think he 'as a conscience about that, and that is why he gave me that nice fish spear."
"Do you ever expect to get back this way?"
"No, I do not think so. We 'ad a committee to see about the caps, and they chose me to represent them. But now that is arranged, and there is no more reason for me going out on land again."
He was silent for a while. Then he burst out: "Damn it all, Iantha, I just can't believe that you're starting off this morning to swim the Atlantic, and I'll never see you again."
She patted his hand. "Maybe you cannot, but that is so. Remember, friendships between my folk and yours always make people un'appy. I shall remember you a long time, but that is all there will ever be to it."
He growled something in his throat, looking straight in front of him.
She said: "Mark, you know I like you, and I think you like me. 'Erbert 'as a moving-picture machine in his house, and he showed me some pictures of 'ow the land folk live.
"These pictures showed a custom of the people in this country, when they like each other. It is called—kissing, I think. I should like to learn that custom."
"Huh? You mean me?" To a man of Vining's temperament, the shock was almost physically painful. But her arms were already sliding around his neck. Presently twenty firecrackers, six Roman candles, and a skyrocket seemed to go off inside him.
"Here we are, folks," called Laird. Getting no response, he repeated the statement more loudly. A faint and unenthusiastic "Yeah" came through the voice tube.
Jones Beach was bleak under the lowering March clouds. The wind drove the rain against the car windows.
They drove down the beach road a way, till the tall tower was lost in the rain. Nobody was in sight.
The men carried Iantha down on the beach and brought the things she was taking. These consisted of a boxful of cans of sardines, with a strap to go over the shoulders; a similar but smaller container with her personal belongings, and the fish spear, with which she might be able to pick up lunch on the way.
Iantha peeled off her land-woman's clothes and pulled on the emerald bathing cap. Vining, watching her with the skirt of his overcoat whipping about his legs, felt as if his heart was running out of his damp shoes onto the sand.
They shook hands, and Iantha kissed them both. She squirmed down the sand and into the water. Then she was gone. Vining thought he saw her wave back from the crest of a wave, but in that visibility he couldn't be sure.
They walked back to the car, squinting against the drops. Laird said: "Listen, Mark, you look as if you'd just taken a right to the button."
Vining merely grunted. He had gotten in front with Laird and was drying his glasses with his handkerchief, as if that were an important and delicate operation.
"Don't tell me you're hooked?"
"So what?"
"Well, I suppose you know there's absolutely nothing you can do about it."
"Herb!" Vining snapped angrily. "Do you have to point out the obvious?"
Laird, sympathizing with his friend's feelings, did not take offense. After they had driven a while, Vining spoke on his own initiative. "That," he said, "is the only woman I've ever known that made me feel at ease. I could talk to her."
Later, he said, "I never felt so damn mixed up in my life. I doubt whether anybody else ever did, either. Maybe I ought to feel relieved it's over. But I don't."
Pause. Then: "You'll drop me in Manhattan on your way back, won't you?"
"Sure, anywhere you say. Your apartment?"
"Anywhere near Times Square will do. There's a bar there I like."
So, thought Laird, at least the normal male's instincts were functioning correctly in the crisis.
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