"Telephone at two-fifteen to the minute, and I'll answer the telephone
myself."

She evidently rather enjoyed the mystery of their not knowing each
other's names. But a black idea occurred to Ben. She had slid off the
raft and swum a few strokes before he shouted to her:

"Look here. Your name isn't Eugenia, is it?"

She waved her hand. "No, I'm Crystal," she called back.

"Good-by, Crystal."

This time she did not wave, but, swimming on her side with long, easy
strokes, she gave him a sweet, reassuring look.

After she had gone he lay down on the raft with his face buried in his
arms. A few moments before he had thought he could never see enough of
the sunrise and the sea, but now he wanted to shut it out in favor of
a much finer spectacle within him. So this was love. Strange that no
one had ever been able to prepare you for it. Strange that poets had
never been able to give you a hint of its stupendous inevitability. He
wondered if all miracles were like that--so simple--so--

Suddenly he heard her voice near him. He lifted his head from his
arms. She was there in the water below him, clinging to the raft with
one hand.

"I just came back to tell you something," she said. "I thought you
ought to know it before things went any farther."