Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 46: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

516 And the first person his eyes encoun- tered as he emerged from the bath house where he had rented a swimming suit was Georgia Michigan Woodstock. Miss Woodstock was alone, reclining in the warm, soft, red sand, looking off dream- ily over the jade water. She wore a one- piece, snugly tailored bathing suit of an arresting crimson, which revealed certain facts of which he had not been entirely un- suspicious before. ; It had been Teddy Armbister’s observa- tion, based upon years of attendance at Northern beaches, that girls with figures always affected bathing suits modest in color; that the scrawny ones and the over- size ones were solely addicted to wearing alarming colors. He found himself now confronted by that rarest of all things— an exception to a rule. Georgia Michigan Woodstock, .as the briefest of glances informed him, had the kind of figure that made Mack Sennett famous. She was slim and perfectly pro- portioned and blessed with those subtle, delightful curves which, through the ages, have made the hearts of all men leap with a strange, exciting pleasure. Her skin, that same breathless glance advised him, was a glorious golden brown. Apparently, she was a frequent patron of the ocean. It was hard to say why his hatred of her should have flamed to new heights at this glimpse of her alluring perfection; but it did. And when Georgia Michigan looked up from her dreams across the sea, as she presently did, it was with a certain shocked dismay at this pale, furious young man who stood, not far away, glaring down at her as if she were, perhaps, some loath- some monster just dragged up on the beach from the slimy deeps. That look of Teddy’s and his unexpected presence shocked her, as it were, to her feet. She sprang up, still with that dis- mayed, incredulous !ook in her eyes; hesi- tated briefly, then walked with a stately stride into the ocean. He watched her go. It seemed to make him madder still when he saw what beau- . tiful, slim shoulders she had, and how proudly she carried her small, trim head. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. He saw her ankles laved by jade wave- lets; and she walked on. When she was knee-deep, she dived, reappearing a dozen feet beyond slipping across the green water with the six-beat crawl. Teddy Armbister strode on down the beach, and the sun seemed to have become of a sudden millions of stinging, white-hot needles lacerating his flesh and searing his soul. There was a big raft afloat some distance out and he swam to this. He told himself that Georgia Michigan Woodstock had ruined his day and that hereafter he would patronize one of the other beaches. The raft, when he reached it, was de- serted. He hauled himself out and stretched out on his stomach and told himself he was an idiot to let this uncivilized girl agitate him this way. Hereafter, he would keep himself under control. He would treat her as if she did not exist. He would show her how unimportant he considered her. He may have dozed. All at once, in any case, he was aroused by a puffing and a splashing and he opened his eyes to look squarely into the dripping, lovely face of Georgia Michigan Woodstock, a Diana in crimson arising from the waves. Georgia Michigan gasped. She was so surprised that she relinquished her hold on the raft and fell back into the water. Teddy knew that she had not swam out here to make him miserable; that this was nothing but one of those damnable coincidences. It was impossible for him to accept the situ- ation gracefully. She was climbing back again now. Ob- viously, she wasn’t going to let him spoil her day. He dived as the white belt around her waist appeared. He dived and he swam for shore, and it was a wonder that the water through which he swam did not turn to steam, An evil, capricious fate seemed deter- mined to make him miserable. Everywhere he turned he seemed to come face to face with Georgia Michigan Woodstock. And it seemed, too, as if they were the only unat- tached couple on the beach. Love was in the air that glorious Sun- day afternoon; the beach was covered with couples. The water was full of couples. Gomichbooks (E@)