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offended by the tone, but in the next instant remembered it was he who had saved her life and so acquired a certain authority over it. She wept softly, humiliated by the memory of the powerlessness into which she had fallen with the first grasp of the undertow.
    He misinterpreted the tears. “You’re all right now!”
    She smelled the vomit on herself, and cried more bitterly.
    He walked her to and fro. He was right: she felt somewhat better. He was wrong: she felt much worse.
    â€œI’m a good swimmer,” she said resentfully. “I could have—” She struggled for self-possession. She thanked him for saving her life.
    â€œLucky I spotted you when I did,” said he. “I guessed you might not know of the undercurrent. I grabbed the jacket and came running down.” Until this moment, in her desperate solipsism she had overlooked the bright yellow life jacket he wore. “They keep out of the ocean,” he said with an edge of contempt. “Are you strong enough to climb the steps?”
    They were near the stairway of log-halves. “I guess so.” She looked up at the house. “Do you think anyone up there saw any of this?”
    â€œI assume they’d be out now if they had,” Chuck said.
    She turned to him. “Could you do me one more favor? This is asking quite a lot, but could you possibly not mention that I went swimming down here?” The request was outrageous of her, she knew, disqualifying him as it did of all recognition of his heroism.
    Yet he agreed immediately, and what was perhaps more remarkable did not ask her to explain. She was suddenly aware of their affinity: this was embarrassing, given her previous repugnance for the man.
    â€œIm really grateful, Chuck,” said she, and put her hand on his. He was still supporting her at the waist without emotional significance; he could have been a professional nurse.

    Audrey now saw them from the house, but she had witnessed nothing of the earlier events and therefore was not aware of the saving of Lydia’s life. To her there seemed no question that her daughter-in-law and the houseguest were embracing, and blatantly, there on the beach where they might be seen by anybody. Appalling as the incident was, Audrey was gratified to have been given, without the expenditure of effort on her part, evidence that confirmed the suspicion she had been entertaining since Bobby had first brought the girl home, viz., that Lydia was an insolent little tart.
    Now the problem was how to deal with the matter. She could not remember the last time she had spoken with Bobby on any really personal issue: perhaps she had never done so in the course of his life. With no precedents whatever, how then could she bluntly inform him that his bride and his best friend were lovers? Nor could she find it possible to forgive Chuck Burgoyne. She had assumed his taste in women would be as superior as everything else about him. Surely he could have had his choice: then why this one? For the degrading reason that she happened to be the nearest? If so, he was no better than Doug. And now Audrey felt justified in admitting the possibility that Doug too might have had his moment with Lydia. He was more slippery a customer than of old. Her surveillance being what it was in this house, she could have sworn that for once there had been no congress between her husband and a girl brought home by his son.
    Not that all the young ladies could, in justice, be blamed: most had resisted, some complaining to Bobby, and one was sufficiently outraged as to apply to Audrey. But irrational though it might be, Audrey could never forgive any of them, least of all the girl who complained to her. She simply detested anyone her husband found attractive, and had the ill fortune to be married to a man who when it came to women could be called both insatiable and omnivorous.
    Her sole confidante, Molly Finley, was still abroad, thus could not be invited to