“Then let’s swim it, Gerald, and carry our own clothes over.”
“Can you swim, Orianda?”
Yes, Orianda could swim rather well.
“All right then,” he said. “I’ll go down here a little way.”
“O, don’t go far, I don’t want you to go far away, Gerald,” and she added softly, “my dear.”
“No, I won’t go far,” he said, and sat down behind a bush a hundred yards away. Here he undressed, flung his shoes one after the other across the river, and swimming on his back carried his clothes over in two journeys. As he sat drying in the sunlight he heard a shout from Orianda. He peeped out and saw her sporting in the stream quite close below him. She swam with a graceful overarm stroke that tossed a spray of drops behind her and launched her body as easily as a fish’s. Her hair was bound in a handkerchief. She waved a hand to him. “You’ve done it! Bravo! What courage! Wait for me. Lovely.” She turned away like an eel, and at every two or three strokes she spat into the air a gay little fountain of water. How extraordinary she was. Gerald wished he had not hurried. By and by he slipped into the water again and swam upstream. He could not see her.
“Have you finished?” he cried.
“I have finished, yes.” Her voice was close above his head. She was lying in the grass, her face propped between her palms, smiling down at him. He could see bare arms and shoulders.
“Got your clothes across?”
“Of course.”