“Thanks,” said Myra, smiling until an amazing quantity of small white teeth showed; “but I just stopped by to tell Bella that Mrs. Blondheim was askin’ for her.”

There was a third pause.

“Won’t you come along, Mr. Arnheim?  Mamma’s always so worried about me; and I’d like for you to meet mamma,” said Bella, anxiously.

With a heroic jerk Mr. Arnheim managed to free himself entirely.  “Thanks,” he said; “but I think I’ll stay out and have a smoke.”

Miss Blondheim’s lips drooped at the corners.  She entered the bright, gabbling lobby, threading her way to her mother’s stronghold.  The maternal glance that greeted her was cold and withering.

“I knew if I couldn’t hold her she’d get him away.  That’s why I didn’t go and play lotto with the ladies.”

“Well, I couldn’t help it, could I?  You’re always nosin’ after me so—­anybody could say you want me and not be lyin’.”

“That’s the thanks I get for tryin’ to do the right thing by my children.  When I was your age I had more gumption in my little finger than you got in your whole hand!  I’d like to see a little piece like her get ahead of me.  No wonder you ain’t got no luck!”

Miss Blondheim sat down wearily beside her mother.  “I wish I knew how she does it.”

“Nerve!  That’s how.  ‘Ain’t I been preachin’ nerve to you since you could talk?  You’d be married to Marcus Finberg now if you’d ‘a’ worked it right and listened to your mother.”

“Aw, maw, lemme alone.  I couldn’t make him pop, could I?  I don’t see other girls’ mothers always buttin’ in.”

Out in the cool of the veranda Miss Sternberger strolled over to the railing and leaned her back against a white wooden column.  Her eyes, upslanting and full of languor, looked out over the toiling, moiling ocean.  She was outlined as gently as a Rembrandt.

“A penny for your thoughts, Miss Sternberger.”

Mr. Arnheim, the glowing end of a newly lighted cigar in one corner of his mouth, peered his head over her shoulder.

“Oh, Mr. Arnheim, how you scared me!” Miss Sternberger placed the well-groomed left hand, with a seal ring on the third finger, upon the thread-lace bosom of her gown.  “How you frightened me!”

“It’s a nice night, Miss Sternberger.  Want to walk on the beach?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” she said.

They strolled the length of the veranda, down the steps to the boardwalk and the beach beyond.

Mrs. Blondheim rolled her crochet into a tight ball and stuck her needle upright.  “Come on, Bella; let’s go to bed.”

They trailed past the desk like birds with damp feathers.

“Send up some ice-water to three-hundred-and-eighteen,” said Miss Bella over the counter, her eyes straining meanwhile past the veranda to the beach below.

Without, a moon low and heavy and red came out from the horizon; it cast a copper-gold band across the water.