He could not answer, he could not even shake his head; he could only by a superhuman effort thrust himself forward perhaps another dozen inches—to be pulled back again by the outward-­rushing water beneath him; but through the spray his exhausted eyes, rapidly losing interest in all which his vision encompassed, saw Cliff tensely still at the edge of the beach, frowning, studying the situation, before, like a released spring, he struck out through the surf.

He remembered nothing of what happened then; he only came to as Cliff lowered him to the dry sand beyond the reach of the waves. He lay on his back, gasping, and looked up at Cliff—who stood, his hands on his knees, bending over him with a worried expression.

“Don’t talk. You’re all right, Johnnie, just don’t talk.”

He turned his head and saw that Billie and Bill Howard and now Sarah Howard too were sitting under their sunshades, some little distance from where he lay in the sand. He looked up at Cliff again, touched by what he thought had been a remarkably sympathetic consideration.

“This is where we landed,” Cliff said. “We were carried downshore by the current. You fought, Johnnie. I had a heck of a time.”

Relief swept up in him; nothing in all the world could be more important at this moment than the fact that he was alive; and for the first time since his early youth, life suddenly seemed to offer possibilities hitherto undreamed of. He was humbly grateful that Cliff had carried him to shore at a distance from the others, but he could not speak of it.

There was no need to. Cliff did the talking.

“You were still on top when I got there, still battling away, Johnnie, but a little slow. I think you were ready to give up. You wouldn’t of, would you?”

“No.” He smiled, enormously gratified and pleased with Cliff. “Let’s go back now.”

“Wait a little.”

“I’m all right. Besides, I don’t want them to know.”

“Give me your hand, Johnnie.” He pulled him to his feet and they went across the sand.

“Anybody got the time?” Cliff asked, perhaps a little too heartily, as they rejoined the group.

A few moment later the Haumans and John Grandin started across the arid expanse toward the bluff. Sarah Howard, left behind with her husband, watched them go. Suddenly she turned about. “Well, I’m damned,” she said in quiet astonishment. “All along I thought it was Billie. But it’s Cliff, my god.”

“What’s Cliff?”

“That John Grandin is in love with.”

“No!” her husband said.

“Yes.”

“The poor guy . . .”