And there she was, suddenly. This time she swam up to him, took his shoulder straps in both hands and kicked out hard. Shayne laughed to himself. This was better. He put his arms around her, pulled her in against him and their face-plates clashed. He tried again. Again there was that clash of face-plates, convincing him that a kiss was impossible. But if they tried hard enough, perhaps they could manage to think of something else.

She wriggled provocatively in his arms. The contact was pleasurable, and Shayne was glad to find that she wasn’t as aloof and reserved as she had seemed at first. There was only one thing wrong. She wanted to go one way; he was determined to go another.

He shook his head, still grinning, tightened one arm around her waist and brought the other around in a long sweep.

His movements had lost some of their usual quickness. He must be more tired than he realized. All at once it seemed that he had either lost his flippers or someone had fastened a heavy weight to each foot. There was a time lag between telling himself what to do and getting around to doing it. He still had a certain amount of kick left, however, and when he at last completed his slow scissoring movement, she went with him. Their joined bodies described a graceful parabola, like one of the carefully rehearsed maneuvers in an underwater ballet.

At the end of the long curve he lost her.

He groped after her. A second Michael Shayne, which had separated itself from the first, watched him critically. He was damn slow. He would never capture the girl unless he could speed up a little. She hovered just beyond his grasp, a very attractive girl, long-legged, deeply tanned. Communication being what it was, he had to get his hands on her to pantomime his appreciation of the way she looked and moved.