P. G. Wodehouse: The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

3. DEEP WATERS (continued)

'You should learn to swim,' interrupted the girl. 'I can't understand why every boy in the country isn't made to learn to swim before he's ten years old. And it isn't a bit difficult, really. I could teach you in a week.'

The struggle between George and George's conscience was brief. The conscience, weak by nature and flabby from long want of exercise, had no sort of chance from the start.

'I wish you would,' said George. And with those words he realized that he had definitely committed himself to his hypocritical role. Till that moment explanation would have been difficult, but possible. Now it was impossible.

'I will,' said the girl. 'I'll start tomorrow if you like.' She waded into the water.

'We'll talk it over at the hotel,' she said, hastily. 'Here comes a crowd of horrid people. I'm going to swim out again.'

She hurried into deeper water, while George, turning, made his way through a growing throng of goggling spectators. Of the fifteen who got within speaking distance of him, six told him that he was wet. The other nine asked him if he had fallen.

* * * * *

Her name was Vaughan, and she was visiting Marvis Bay in company with an aunt. So much George ascertained from the management of the hotel. Later, after dinner, meeting both ladies on the esplanade, he gleaned further information--to wit, that her first name was Mary, that her aunt was glad to make his acquaintance, liked Marvis Bay but preferred Trouville, and thought it was getting a little chilly and would go indoors.

The elimination of the third factor had a restorative effect upon George's conversation, which had begun to languish. In feminine society as a rule he was apt to be constrained, but with Mary Vaughan it was different. Within a couple of minutes he was pouring out his troubles. The cue-withholding leading lady, the stick-like Mifflin, the funereal comedian--up they all came, and she, gently sympathetic, was endeavouring, not without success, to prove to him that things were not so bad as they seemed.