and shelves. “Have you got matches? a knife?” she asked over her shoulder. “And—where are oranges? Let’s take some oranges. I love oranges, don’t you?” She turned her head to look at him. His hand was just touching her sleeve, so diffidently that she had not felt it. She turned suddenly, putting the oranges down, and put her arms about him, hard and firm and sexless, drawing his cheek down to her sober moist kiss. She could feel his hammering erratic heart against her breast, could hear it surging in the silence almost as though it were in her own body. His arms tightened and he moved his head, seeking her mouth, but she evaded him with a quick movement, without reproof.
“No, no, not that. Everybody does that.” She strained him against her hard body again, then released him. “Come on, now. Have you got everything?” She examined the shelves again, finding at last a small basket. It was filled with damp lettuce but she dumped the lettuce out and put her things in it. “You take my shoes. They’ll go in your pocket, won’t they?” She crumpled her limp blonde stockings into her slippers and gave them to him. Then she picked up the basket and snapped off the light.
Day was a nearer thing yet, though it was not quite come. Though the mist had not thinned, the yacht was visible from stem to stern, asleep like a gull with folded wings; and against the hull the water sighed a long awakening sigh. The shoreline was darker, a more palpable vagueness in the mist.
“Say,” she remarked, stopping suddenly, “how are we going to get ashore? I forgot that. We don’t want to take the tender.”
“Swim,” he suggested. Her dark damp head came just to his chin and she mused for a time in a sober consternation.
