His companion was altogether less noticeable; a shrewd, light-eyed, slightly built man in the thirties; a man marked early in life for moderate success in most things. One of his successes was card playing, as his adversary was discovering; perhaps he was more successful in that than in anything. For days he had been steadily winning away from its owner the recently acquired wealth which a stroke of luck had brought him; and the loser, in the grip of the gambler's superstition, played on in the hope of winning back. Their solitude was invaded by the sudden appearance of a girl with a collie dog. She approached unexpectedly from behind the wall within a foot or two of the players, who, flushed and intent, disregarded her in their silent concentration on the game. The girl surveyed their grouping in surprise; and the younger man, looking up involuntarily from the cards he held, paused in the act of taking one from his hand to return her curious look. She averted her eyes and walked on; and the man returned to the game, and forgot almost immediately in this greater interest that just for a moment he had been quite curiously impressed by the steady inquiring eyes which had looked into and held his with the odd intimacy and interest of their gaze. The owner of the inquiring eyes walked leisurely down to the shore, where she paused to respond to the dog's excited invitation by throwing a stick she carried for the purpose into the sea for him to retrieve. Again and again, when the collie brought back the stick and laid it before her and barked for a repetition of the game, the girl stooped with swift grace, picked up the stick, and with a free side swing of the arm flung it far into the waves. "Damn that dog!" snapped the older man. "Why doesn't the fool of a girl move farther on instead of making herself a nuisance?" The younger man allowed his attention to stray from the cards and turn his gaze seaward. He watched the collie swimming through the surf, and the white figure of the girl poised against the blue, with the cool waves running up the wet sand almost to her feet, and the shimmering steamy heat vapour rising from the sands behind her, an atmospheric veil quivering between herself and him. The joyous barking of the dog as, emerging from the waves, it beshowered the girl plentifully in an attempt to shake the salt drops from its coat, was the only sound to disturb the harmony of the sea's lazy response to the whisper of the breeze. "I expect," he said, leisurely shuffling the cards, "she considers her occupation more legitimate than ours. After all, I don't see what cause you have to be nervy because a dog barks."