Arnold's open, blond face flushed scarlet at this statement. He looked at the dripping little brown rat beside him, and returned impulsively, "I'd rather play with you than any girl I ever saw."
They were immediately reduced to an awkward silence by these two unpremeditated superlatives. Judith found nothing to say beyond a "huh" in an uncertain accent, and they turned with relief to alarums and excursions from the forgotten and abandoned Sylvia and Lawrence. Sylvia was forcibly restraining her little brother from following Judith into the water. "You mustn't, Buddy! You know we aren't allowed to go in till an hour after eating and you only had your breakfast a little while ago!" She led him away bellowing.
Arnold, surprised, asked Judith, "'Cept for that, are you allowed to go in whenever you want?"
"Sure! We're not to stay in more than ten minutes at a time, and then get out and run around for half an hour in the sun. There's a clock under a little roof-thing, nailed up to a tree over there, so's we can tell."
"And don't you get what-for, if you go in with all your clothes on this way?"
"I haven't any clothes on but my rompers," said Judith. "They're just the same as a bathing suit." She snatched back her prerogative of asking questions. "Where did you learn to swim so?"
"At the seashore! I get taken there a month every summer. It's the most fun of any of the places I get taken. I've had lessons there from the professor of swimming ever since I was six. Madrina doesn't know what to do with me but have me take lessons. I like the swimming ones the best. I hate dancing—and going to museums."
"What else can you do?" asked Judith with a noticeable abatement of her previous disesteem.
Arnold hesitated, his own self-confidence as evidently dashed. "Well—I can fence a little—and talk French; we are in Paris winters, you know. We don't stay in Lydford for the winter. Nobody does."
"Everybody goes away?" queried Judith. "What a funny town!"