thought he'd commit a murder one day. Yes, even while they talked to Mrs.
Kember and took in the awful concoction she was wearing, they saw her,
stretched as she lay on the beach; but cold, bloody, and still with a
cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth.

Mrs. Kember rose, yawned, unsnapped her belt buckle, and tugged at the tape
of her blouse. And Beryl stepped out of her skirt and shed her jersey, and
stood up in her short white petticoat, and her camisole with ribbon bows on
the shoulders.

"Mercy on us," said Mrs. Harry Kember, "what a little beauty you are!"

"Don't!" said Beryl softly; but, drawing off one stocking and then the
other, she felt a little beauty.

"My dear--why not?" said Mrs. Harry Kember, stamping on her own petticoat.
Really--her underclothes! A pair of blue cotton knickers and a linen
bodice that reminded one somehow of a pillow-case..."And you don't wear
stays, do you?" She touched Beryl's waist, and Beryl sprang away with a
small affected cry. Then "Never!" she said firmly.

"Lucky little creature," sighed Mrs. Kember, unfastening her own.

Beryl turned her back and began the complicated movements of some one who
is trying to take off her clothes and to pull on her bathing-dress all at
one and the same time.

"Oh, my dear--don't mind me," said Mrs. Harry Kember. "Why be shy? I
shan't eat you. I shan't be shocked like those other ninnies." And she
gave her strange neighing laugh and grimaced at the other women.