She nodded, smiled, and simulated a prodigious effort at filling her lungs to their utmost capacity. Graham watched enchanted. A diver himself, he had rarely seen the turn and a half attempted by women other than professionals. Her wet suit of light blue and green silk clung closely to her, showing the lines of her justly proportioned body. With what appeared to be an agonized gulp for the last cubic inch of air her lungs could contain, she sprang up, out, and down, her body vertical and stiff, her legs straight, her feet close together as they impacted on the springboard end. Flung into the air by the board, she doubled her body into a ball, made a complete revolution, then straightened out in perfect diver's form, and in a perfect dive, with scarcely a ripple, entered the water. "A Toledo blade would have made more splash," was Graham's verdict. "If only I could dive like that," Ernestine breathed her admiration. "But I never shall. Dick says diving is a matter of timing, and that's why Paula does it so terribly well. She's got the sense of time--" "And of abandon," Graham added. "Of willed abandon," Dick qualified. "Of relaxation by effort," Graham agreed. "I've never seen a professional do so perfect a turn and a half." "And I'm prouder of it than she is," Dick proclaimed. "You see, I taught her, though I confess it was an easy task. She coordinates almost effortlessly. And that, along with her will and sense of time--why her first attempt was better than fair." "Paula is a remarkable woman," Mrs. Tully said proudly, her eyes fluttering between the second hand of the watch and the unbroken surface of the pool. "Women never swim so well as men. But she does.--Three minutes and forty seconds! She's beaten her father!" "But she won't stay under any five minutes, much less ten," Dick solemnly stated. "She'll burst her lungs first." At four minutes, Mrs. Tully began to show excitement and to look anxiously from face to face. Captain Lester, not in the secret, scrambled to his feet with an oath and dived into the tank. "Something has happened," Mrs. Tully said with controlled quietness. "She hurt herself on that dive. Go in after her, you men." But Graham and Bert and Dick, meeting under water, gleefully grinned and squeezed hands. Dick made signs for them to follow, and led the way through the dark-shadowed water into the crypt, where, treading water, they joined Paula in subdued whisperings and gigglings. "Just came to make sure you were all right," Dick explained. "And now we've got to beat it.--You first, Bert. I'll follow Evan." And, one by one, they went down through the dark water and came up on the surface of the pool. By this time Mrs. Tully was on her feet and standing by the edge of the tank. "If I thought this was one of your tricks, Dick Forrest," she began. But Dick, paying no attention, acting preternaturally calmly, was directing the men loudly enough for her to hear.