' Nowyou can show your colours,' she said. 'You look like a submarine with the periscope stuck out of the water.'

She swam like a sea-nymph, and her figure, all naked and glistening with the water as she poised herself for her dives, made Charlie forget all about Aunt Lavinia, tailors' bills or any worries in this world. He made an ineffective attempt to get into her while they were both floating-he had heard of such things being done-but the result was nearly a watery death for both. However, they managed to toss each other off, then Maudie called a halt, and they clambered out and on to the landing stage.

The mattresses, covered with thick toweling, were beautifully soft, and their wet bodies sank luxuriously into their embrace.

'There's a very pretty little grass slope over there,' said Maudie, 'if you prefer nature. For my part, I agree with the late lamented Oscar Wilde-Nature may be very nice to look at, but it was not intended to sit on. Let's lie here, and let the sun dry us. There are lots of little towels lying about if you want one.'

Charlie's only reply was a passionate kiss.

His hand strayed to where it shouldn't, but the girl put it gently away.

'Not just now, dear,' she said; 'we've had a good bit. Lie quiet in the sun. You can smoke if you like. You'll find cigarettes in the cupboard in the dressing-room, and all sorts of drink if you want it. Personally, I should like a little champagne cup. Yes, I should: my butler makes it to perfection. I'll phone up to the house.'

'But-he mustn't see us like this.'

'Oh, he won't; there's a sliding door opens into the back of the cupboard.'

She went to the telephone. How lovely she looked standing there in all her naked grace, quite like a Grecian goddess-and what a contrast to the very modern apparatus in her hand. Charlie longed to take a photograph of her, and the girl seemed to divine his thoughts.