“I hope you swim better than you walk,” he said, with a smile.

After that challenge I had to excel. I forgot my half-formed plan of flapping around and pretending to be only a mediocre swimmer. I swam rings around him. He was good but not in my class. I can brag about my swimming because it’s the only thing I can brag about. Most of the other things I did that summer were disasters.

When we were ready to quit I raced him in and got there quite a distance ahead of him. He was winded when he joined me. His chest was pumping in and out like a bellows. And of course, damn him, he said just the right thing.

“My God, you’re good. How about giving me lessons?”

It was then that I remembered my subtle, crafty scheme for pretending I was a lousy swimmer. I looked at Jim’s smiling face. His eyelashes were stuck together in spiky points and his eyes were wide with admiration and pleasure. There wasn’t a mean bone in his body. He was as candid and open as…as I was not. It never entered his head that my expertise might be turned to illegal ends. That was the first thing that would have occurred to Frederick.

“Oh, well,” I mumbled. “You’re pretty good yourself.”

“Not in your class.”

He was still watching me with beaming approval, not a trace of wounded vanity or crushed male ego; and I knew that if I didn’t speak up I would never be able to look him in the eye again. I had actually opened my mouth to start the confession when the earth shook.

I mean, it really shook. The sinking feeling wasn’t inside me, it was in the ground. It felt like a plane hitting an air pocket, a swoop and then a lift. When the movement stopped, Jim and I were lying flat on the ground. His arms were around me and I was clutching him like a drowning man. In one lovely smooth movement he stood up, lifting me with him.

“Nice little earthquake,” he said, and kissed me.

It is a testimonial to Jim’s kisses that for a little while I wasn’t sure whether the ground was really rocking under my feet or whether it just felt that way. When he finally lifted his head I saw that he was smiling.

“We’d better get back,” he said casually, and scooped up our discarded clothing.

Another shock hit. I staggered, and Jim put his arm around me again. My teeth began to chatter.

“Oh, God,” I groaned. “This is awful.”

“I can see you aren’t used to quakes. This was a baby quake, just a tremor. Come on, now, be a big girl.”

We walked a few steps, but I was still shaking and I kept tripping over my fins. Jim picked me up in his arms. He was a lot stronger than he looked. As we approached the pier a ragged cheer went up. I lifted my head from Jim’s shoulder and saw the men standing along the pier watching us.

“Put me down,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Yes… Are there going to be any more earthquakes?”

“How would I know? Maybe we shouldn’t take any chances.”

He kissed me again. I had not intended to respond, but I couldn’t help it. Finally the roaring in my ears subsided and I realized the men on the pier were cheering again.

“Put me down, damn it,” I said. “I’m not going to put on a free show for those peeping toms.”

“They aren’t peeping, they’re standing right out in the open.”

But he put me down. I took off my fins and stalked toward the steps with what dignity I could manage. I walked past the grinning audience with my nose in the air. Jim was behind me. He said something to the men; there was a laughing chorus of response.

Then Jim caught up with me, and I demanded, “What did you say?”

“I told them you were my girl.”

“What do you mean, your girl?”

“I should have said ‘woman.’”

I started to object; he cut me short by handing me my dress. I put it on. When my head emerged I saw that Jim was studying me soberly.

“Better understand something,” he said. “Insofar as sexual morality is concerned, these people are still in the nineteenth century. There are two kinds of women here-good, respectable ladies, who stay at home and tend their cook pots, and-the other kind. Western women confuse these guys. They still think of women as property. Okay, so I told them you were my property. You may not like it. I don’t like it either. But they are more likely to respect my property rights than your feelings. Not that I’m trying to curtail your extracurricular activities, but-”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I have no-”

That was when it happened. I could pinpoint the exact second; between “no” and the next word, which was going to be “plans.” I never said it. I was looking straight at him. Our eyes met, as it says in the old books. It was a meeting, more significant than any physical touch.

Neither of us spoke. Words weren’t necessary. We walked up the sloping street toward the plaza, holding hands.

Church was letting out and people were standing around, talking and drinking coffee and relaxing. This was their one day of rest, and they were enjoying it. At one of the tables on the terrace a man was sitting. I picked him out of the crowd right away, because he was the only man who was wearing a hat. It was an expensive-looking tweed cap, and it struck an incongruous note on such a hot day.

I nudged Jim and pointed. “Sir Christopher?”

“Right.”

He saw us coming; when we reached the terrace he was on his feet, holding a chair for me and smiling. The cap came off with a gallant sweep. Then I understood why he wore it. He was as bald as an egg, and, without protection, that pink skin would have fried like an egg. As if to compensate for the hairlessness on top, he had cultivated a handsome handlebar moustache that curved like a buffalo’s black horns. I was reminded of Hercule Poirot, but Sir Christopher wasn’t short and tubby like Agatha Christie’s detective. He was tall and lean and rather handsome in a bony, big-nosed way. He had a nice smile and an air of understated elegance that made me feel grubby, with my salt-soaked hair and damp dress.

“How do you do, Miss Bishop,” he said. “I hope our little earthquake didn’t alarm you.”

“It did,” I admitted.

“There’s no danger, unless you happen to be in a ravine or under a cliff when loose rock is shaken down. You may have noticed the arched construction prevalent here. It is quite well adapted to quakes; I’ve seen these houses swaying to and fro, but they don’t often collapse.”

I assumed the speech was meant to be reassuring. It did not affect me that way. Sir Christopher’s smile broadened.

“You’ll become accustomed to earth tremors if you spend much time in this part of the world,” he said consolingly.

“I guess they have lots of earthquakes,” I said. “I knew it, from my reading, but until you’ve experienced it… How about the volcano?”

“Quite active,” said Sir Christopher cheerily. “But don’t fret, you’ll not see anything like the great eruption of 1450, the one that has preserved so much for us. The only other disaster of that magnitude occurred in approximately 25,000 B.C.”

He chuckled as he saw me surreptitiously counting on my fingers.

“An interval of almost twenty-five thousand years, my dear,” he said. “There has never been anything like the fifteenth-century eruption in recorded history-except for Krakatoa, of course, and that was probably not as great as the Thera eruption.”

“Krakatoa was bad enough,” Jim said. “The descriptions of eyewitnesses are strikingly reminiscent of certain legends that have come down to us from early times.”

He glanced at Sir Christopher, who laughed lightly.

“Jim and I enjoy arguing about his theories. Atlantis, the Greek flood legend, the Exodus story-”

“Then you don’t believe in the idea that Thera is-was-Atlantis?” I asked.

“Oh, I think the majority of scholars agree that the eruption and the consequent destruction of the Cretan cities may have furnished the kernel of Plato’s story,” Sir Christopher said disinterestedly. “But I am unable to go along with the enthusiasts who want to connect every myth with that single event.”