He and Chesney went for that sail and several others. With a sort of grim satisfaction Amaldi would tell himself on these occasions that the more Chesney was with him the less his wife would see of him. He felt in every fibre the relief it was to Sophy when her husband's towering figure stepped over the side of The Wind-Flower and was gone for long hours together.
For the week following Chesney's arrival the weather had a crisp tang quite autumnal; then suddenly it changed, becoming summer-like and even sultry again. On the first day of this change Amaldi and Chesney were out in The Wind-Flower together. It was noon. The Tramontana had died out. The Inverna had not yet risen. They had been running before the wind, and now, when it suddenly ceased, the heat was intense.
Though Amaldi's sailor, Peppin, was always aboard, Chesney loved handling the ropes himself when not at the tiller, which Amaldi insisted on his taking most of the time. He had been springing about at a great rate that morning, shifting the spinnaker. Now, all overheated and sweltering in the breathless pause between the breezes of morning and afternoon, he announced his intention of "going overboard for a swim."
Amaldi cautioned him that the September air played tricks on one, and that the Inverna would probably blow rather strong that day.
"I don't think I'd do it," he said. "We've no extra coats aboard. You might get badly chilled."
"'Chilled'?" echoed Chesney, with his most good-natured grin. "My dear chap, that's what I'm hoping...."
He was getting out of his flannels as he spoke.
"I really wouldn't, you know," repeated Amaldi.
But Chesney only whipped his shirt over his head for reply; his feet were already bare. And against the blazing mainsail, in the full glare of sunshine, he stood there naked—a magnificent, glistering shape of manhood that caused Peppin's eyes to shine.
And Amaldi, too, could not withhold his admiration. So superb was this huge, stripped man—so perfectly proportioned—so admirably free from the least ounce of unnecessary fat.