Faster! Faster! by E. M. Delafield

Frances, a frequent visitor at Arling, had not always been spared.
    Yet Frances felt that she had liked, and understood, the tyrannical, self-willed, youthful Claudia better than she did the mature Claudia, so self-restrained and so unreal.
    Frances was grieved, as she dwelt upon her own criticism, but it did not cause her to bemoan her own disloyalty.
    She was fond of Claudia: she would always be fond of Claudia. Nothing of that was impaired because she could not see Claudia as she had, in the years of their separation, seen her. And she reminded herself that there was much, probably, of which she knew nothing, to explain the new Claudia.
    Copper, for instance, was—disappointing?
    Frances searched anxiously in her mind for the right word by which to describe Copper Winsloe.
    One couldn’t, she felt, just dismiss him as disagreeable, although he
was
disagreeable, often. To-day, though, he’d been more like the Copper that she remembered—nonchalantly agreeable, quite ready to please and be pleased.
    â€œWell, I shall go for a stroll, I think,” said the object of her thoughts. “Betsy!”
    â€œWhere are you going, Daddy?” asked Maurice.
    (“Darling
Betsy!” said Taffy extravagantly, as the Airedale capered gaily amongst the brightly coloured horn mugs and plates of the depleted picnic.)
    â€œI’m going up the cliff.”
    â€œCan I come with you?”
    â€œIf you like.”
    â€œYou must be back in about half an hour, Maurice, if you want to bathe again,” said Claudia.
    â€œOh.”
    Maurice paused.
    â€œI don’t know how much of a walk you want, Copper. Are you going to go far?” asked his wife.
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” said Copper curtly. “I can’t go timing myself to the minute.”
    He strode off without turning to see whether or not his small son was following.
    â€œMaurice,” said Claudia quickly, “will you help to collect the mugs and things? Then it’ll be all done, and we needn’t hurry over the bathe.”
    â€œDon’t you ever bathe?” Taffy enquired of Andrew Quarrendon.
    He shook his head.
    They began to pack up. Claudia worked with deft efficiency and extraordinary speed, leaving very little for other people to do.
    The two girls and Maurice ran down to the edge of the water again. The tide was going out. Presently they could only be seen as black dots on a silvery expanse, against the light of the sun.
    Claudia had invited Andrew Quarrendon to come for a stroll along the cliffs. He moved off, his step shambling and uneasy, his head bent as though he found it necessary always to look at the ground as he walked.
    â€œWhat a curious-looking creature Professor Quarrendon is!” said Mrs Peel in tones of distaste.
    Then she announced her intention of going onto the sands, and trailed slowly away down the cliff path.
    Sal and Frances followed, Sal in search of a bathing-tent, and Frances to watch Claudia’s three children.
    It seemed to her a long time since she had been in contact with youth, and she was innocently pleased and surprised because Sylvia and Taffy and Maurice seemed so willing to talk to her, andshowed no signs of the contempt for her middle-age that various arraignments of the modern young in literature had led her to expect. On the contrary, she found them polite and kind and very friendly.
    Quite soon, as she strolled up and down the wet sands, Taffy came and joined her.
    Taffy was wearing a little backless white bathing-suit, laced up at the sides, barely covering her slim breasts, and leaving her back exposed to the waist.
    Frances thought that she had seldom seen anything lovelier than those long lines, that smooth, unblemished young body. At first, dazzled by Sylvia’s rose-and-gold prettiness, she had thought Taffy’s small freckled face and straight sandy bob insignificant-looking. Now, she wondered how she could ever have thought so.
    The girl’s