Nearest her, on the other side, a young woman lay under a roof of umbrellas making out a list of things from a book open on the sand. Her bathing suit was pulled off her shoulders and her back, a ruddy, orange brown, set off by a string of creamy pearls, shone in the sun. Her face was hard and lovely and pitiful. Her eyes met Rosemarys but did not see her. Beyond her was a fine man in a jockey cap and red-striped tights; then the woman Rosemary had seen on the raft, and who looked back at her, seeing her; then a man with a long face and a golden, leonine head, with blue tights and no hat, talking very seriously to an unmistakably Latin[13] young man in black tights, both of them picking at little pieces of sea-weed in the sand. She thought they were mostly Americans, but something made them unlike the Americans she had known of late.
After a while she realized that the man in the jockey cap was giving a quiet little performance for this group; he moved gravely about with a rake, ostensibly removing gravel and meanwhile developing some esoteric burlesque held in suspension by his grave face. Its faintest ramification had become hilarious, until whatever he said released a burst of laughter. Even those who, like herself, were too far away to hear, sent out antennae of attention until the only person on the beach not caught up in it was the young woman with the string of pearls. Perhaps from modesty of possession she responded to each salvo of amusement by bending closer over her list.
The man of the monocle and botlle spoke suddenly out of the sky above Rosemary.
You are a ripping swimmer.
She demurred.
Jolly good. My name is Campion. Here is a lady who says she saw you in Sorrento last week and knows who you are and would so like to meet you.
Glancing around with concealed annoyance Rosemary saw the untanned people were waiting. Reluctantly she got up and went over to them.
Mrs. Abrams Mrs. McKisco Mr. McKisco Mr. Dumphry
We know who you are, spoke up the woman in evening dress. Youre Rosemary Hoyt and I recognized you in Sorrento and asked the hotel clerk and we all think youre perfectly marvellous and we want to know why youre not back in America making another marvellous moving picture.
They made a superfluous gesture of moving over for her. The woman who had recognized her was not a Jewess, despite her name. She was one of those elderly good sports preserved by an imperviousness to experience and a good digestion into another generation.
We wanted to warn you about getting burned the first day, she continued cheerily, because your skin is important, but there seems to be so darn[14] much formality on this beach that we didnt know whether youd mind.
II
We thought maybe you were in the plot, said Mrs. McKisco. She was a shabby-eyed, pretty young woman with a disheartening intensity. We dont know whos in the plot and who isnt. One man my husband had been particularly nice to turned out to be a chief character practically the assistant hero.
The plot? inquired Rosemary, half understanding. Is there a plot?
My dear, we dont know, said Mrs. Abrams, with a convulsive, stout womans chuckle. Were not in it. Were the gallery[15].
Mr. Dumphry, a tow-headed effeminate young man, remarked: Mama Abrams is a plot in herself, and Campion shook his monocle at him, saying: Now, Royal, dont be too ghastly for words[16]. Rosemary looked at them all uncomfortably, wishing her mother had come down here with her. She did not like these people, especially in her immediate comparison of them with those who had interested her at the other end of the beach. Her mothers modest but compact social gift got them out of unwelcome situations swiftly and firmly. But Rosemary had been a celebrity for only six months, and sometimes the French manners of her early adolescence and the democratic manners of America, these latter superimposed, made a certain confusion and let her in for just such things.
Mr. McKisco, a scrawny, freckle-and-red man of thirty, did not find the topic of the plot amusing. He had been staring at the sea now after a swift glance at his wife he turned to Rosemary and demanded aggressively:
Been here long?
Only a day.
Oh.
Evidently feeling that the subject had been thoroughly changed, he looked in turn at the others.
Going to stay all summer? asked Mrs. McKisco, innocently. If you do you can watch the plot unfold.
For Gods sake, Violet, drop the subject! exploded her husband. Get a new joke, for Gods sake!
Mrs. McKisco swayed toward Mrs. Abrams and breathed audibly:
Hes nervous.
Im not nervous, disagreed McKisco. It just happens Im not nervous at all.
He was burning visibly a grayish flush had spread over his face, dissolving all his expressions into a vast ineffectuality. Suddenly remotely conscious of his condition he got up to go in the water, followed by his wife, and seizing the opportunity Rosemary followed.
Mr. McKisco drew a long breath, flung himself into the shallows and began a stiff-armed batting of the Mediterranean, obviously intended to suggest a crawl his breath exhausted he arose and looked around with an expression of surprise that he was still in sight of shore.
I havent learned to breathe yet. I never quite understood how they breathed. He looked at Rosemary inquiringly.
I think you breathe out under water, she explained. And every fourth beat you roll your head over for air.
The breathings the hardest part for me. Shall we go to the raft?
The man with the leonine head lay stretched out upon the raft, which tipped back and forth with the motion of the water. As Mrs. McKisco reached for it a sudden tilt struck her arm up roughly, whereupon the man started up and pulled her on board.
I was afraid it hit you. His voice was slow and shy; he had one of the saddest faces Rosemary had ever seen, the high cheekbones of an Indian, a long upper lip, and enormous deep-set dark golden eyes. He had spoken out of the side of his mouth, as if he hoped his words would reach Mrs. McKisco by a circuitous and unobtrusive route; in a minute he had shoved off into the water and his long body lay motionless toward shore.
Rosemary and Mrs. McKisco watched him. When he had exhausted his momentum he abruptly bent double, his thin thighs rose above the surface, and he disappeared totally, leaving scarcely a fleck of foam behind.
Hes a good swimmer, Rosemary said.
Mrs. McKiscos answer came with surprising violence.
Well, hes a rotten musician. She turned to her husband, who after two unsuccessful attempts had managed to climb on the raft, and having attained his balance was trying to make some kind of compensatory flourish[17], achieving only an extra stagger. I was just saying that Abe North may be a good swimmer but hes a rotten musician.
Yes, agreed McKisco, grudgingly. Obviously he had created his wifes world, and allowed her few liberties in it.
Antheils[18] my man. Mrs. McKisco turned challengingly to Rosemary, Antheil and Joyce[19]. I dont suppose you ever hear much about those sort of people in Hollywood, but my husband wrote the first criticism of Ulysses[20] that ever appeared in America.