Page 412 - tender-is-the-night

the young people were polite, deferential, but Nicole felt an
undercurrent of ‘Who are these Numbers anyhow?’ and she
missed Dick’s easy talent of taking control of situations and
making them all right—he had concentrated on what he
was going to try to do.
The motor throttled down two hundred yards from
shore and one of the young men dove flat over the edge.
He swam at the aimless twisting board, steadied it, climbed
slowly to his knees on it— then got on his feet as the boat
accelerated. Leaning back he swung his light vehicle pon-
derously from side to side in slow, breathless arcs that rode
the trailing side-swell at the end of each swing. In the direct
wake of the boat he let go his rope, balanced for a moment,
then back-flipped into the water, disappearing like a statue
of glory, and reappearing as an insignificant head while the
boat made the circle back to him.
Nicole refused her turn; then Rosemary rode the board
neatly and conservatively, with facetious cheers from her
admirers. Three of them scrambled egotistically for the
honor of pulling her into the boat, managing, among them,
to bruise her knee and hip against the side.
‘Now you. Doctor,’ said the Mexican at the wheel.
Dick and the last young man dove over the side and
swam to the board. Dick was going to try his lifting trick
and Nicole began to watch with smiling scorn. This physical
showing-off for Rosemary irritated her most of all.
When the men had ridden long enough to find their bal-
ance, Dick knelt, and putting the back of his neck in the
other man’s crotch, found the rope through his legs, and

412 Tender is the Night