three o'clock
Keeping prudently inshore , yet feeling delightfully venturesome , she skimmed along by the row of shut-up cottages , and was soon lost to the stare of the rickey-drinkers , of whose interest she had been quite unaware , or , let us say , practically unaware ... . Not for the eyes of anonymous transients or liberal-minded drummers had Carlisle Heth donned this charming boat-dress and put out upon the bounding blue . Not just to break the tedium of the afternoon , either ; not even exclusively for the vast exhilaration of sailing , though undoubtedly she thrilled to that . But the interesting coincidence , giving a peculiar point to it all , was that the three o'clock train from town was due within the half-hour , and her present course lay dead across the line of the street from the station . Travel-worn young men ; desolate Beach ; chagrin at coming ; and then , presto , upon the jaded vision : -- blue , sunny water , white-sailed boat , beautiful nymph . Great heavens , what a tableau ! ... We well know how resistlessly the male of humankind is drawn to the female , at the mere glimpse of her flinging aside the tools of his trade , whatever it may be , and furiously pursuing to the ends of the earth .