They swam, easily, side by side, he supporting her in her cramped clothes at the start, and she, a bit concerned, somewhat supporting him toward the end. Meanwhile, there was some stir at the lifesaving station, a quarter of a mile down the shore.
The last hundred feet meant mere wading, though there was some variability among the sand ridges of the bottom; but the water, at its deepest, never reached their shoulders. Their small accident now began to take on the character of a ceremonial—an immersion incident to some religious rite or observance; and the little Sunday crowd collecting on the water’s edge might have been members of some congregation sympathetically welcoming a pair of converts to the faith.
“Let’s hold our heads high and walk straight,” said Cope, his arm in hers; “heaven knows whom we are likely to meet. And throw your hat away—you’ll look better without it. Lord knows where mine is,” he added, as he ran a smoothing hand over his long locks.
“Very well,” she said, casting away her ruined, ridiculous headgear with her free arm. The other, in his, was giving more support to him, she felt, than he was giving to her.
Just as they were about to reach dry land, amidst the congratulations and the amused smiles of the little group at the foot of the bluff, the belated crew of lifesavers swept up in their smallest boat and insisted on capturing them.
“Oh, Mr. Cope,” said a familiar voice, “please let us save you. We haven’t saved a soul for months.”
Cope recognized one of his own students and surrendered, though a kindly house-owner on the bluff had been quick to cry across the intervening yards of water his offer of hospitality. “All right,” he said; “take us back to your place, where we can dry and telephone.” He hoped, too, that they might have to encounter fewer people at the other spot than at this.
Meanwhile, another boat belonging to the station had set out to aid the owner of the sloop in its recovery. It was soon righted and was brought in. There was no damage done, and there was no charge that Cope could not meet, as he learned next day to his great relief.
The station gave him a dry outfit of clothes, assembled from here and there, and telephoned to Mrs. Phillips to bring fresh garments for Amy. Neither had time to get a chill. A pair of kindly servant-maids, who were loitering on the shore with their young men, insisted on carrying the heroine of the afternoon into retirement, where they expeditiously undressed her, rubbed her, and wrapped her in a quilt snatched from a lifesaving bed. Amy was cold indeed, and inclined to shiver. She understood, now, why Cope had not encouraged that bathing party at the dunes.
In a few minutes Medora Phillips tore up in her car, with Helga and a mountain of clothing and wraps. She was inclined to make the most of the occasion, and she did so. With Helga she quickly superseded the pair of sympathetic and ready maids, whom she allowed to fade into the background with too scant recognition of their services; and when she had got Amy thoroughly warmed and rehabilitated she turned her thought toward Cope. Here, certainly, was a young scholastic recluse who had an admirable faculty for getting into the public eye. If one section of Churchton society had talked about his performance at her dinner, all sections of it would now be discussing his new performance on the high seas. Suddenly she was struck with the notion that possibly his first lapse had not left him in condition to stand this second one.
“How are you feeling?” she asked anxiously. “No chill? No shock?”
“I’m all right,” he declared. “One of the boys has just given me a drink of—of—” But it was a beverage the use of which was not generally approved in Churchton.
Mrs. Phillips turned round suddenly. “Amy, did you have a drink, too, of—of—of—if ‘Of’ is what you call it?”
“I did,” said Amy firmly; “and I feel the better for it.”
“Well, get in, then, and I’ll take you home.”
Peter grinned from the front seat of the car; Mrs. Phillips placed herself between the two victims on the back one; the lifesavers, who had kept the discarded garments to dry, gave them all a few smiles and hand wavings; the two young women and their two young men looked on with some deference; the general crowd gave a little mock-cheer before turning its Sunday leisure to other forms of interest; and the small party whirled away.
Amy leaned a tired, moist head, but a happy one, on Mrs. Phillips’ shoulder. “He was so quick,” she breathed, “and so brave, and so strong.” She professed to believe that he had saved her life. Cope, silent as he looked straight ahead between Peter and Helga, was almost afraid that she had saved his.
XVII
Cope Among Crosscurrents
Next morning, at breakfast, Amy Leffingwell kept, for the most part, a rapt and meditative eye on her plate. Hortense gave her now and then an impatient, half-angry glare, and had to be cut short in some stinging observations on Cope. “But it was foolish,” Medora Phillips felt obliged to concede. “What in the world made you do it?”
But Amy continued to smile at the tablecloth. She seemed to be intimating that there was a special folly which transcended mere general folly and approximated wisdom.
After breakfast she spoke a few words to Carolyn. She had had all night to think the matter over; she now saw it from a new angle and in a
