Sir Evelyn, who was a courteous gentleman, took off his hat, bowed and apologised for his intrusion.
"I'm exceedingly sorry for disturbing you," he said. "If I had known you were bathing I should have waited until you had finished."
"Hold on a minute," said the lady. "I can't hear a word you're saying."
She plunged, a neat header with scarcely a splash. He saw the red clad form, curved stiffly from neck to heel, shooting through the clear water. The blue cap emerged, plump arms flashed and splashed. With incredible swiftness and all the grace of a swimming seal she crossed the pool. Grasping the rock at Sir Evelyn's feet she pulled herself half out of the water and looked at him with a gleaming smile.
"This is quite exciting," she said. "I don't think I ever saw anyone here before. Do tell me who you are and what you're doing."
The approach and the questioning which followed it surprised Sir Evelyn. This was not the way in which strangers usually sought to make his acquaintance. But though shocked and a little startled, he was not angry. It is almost impossible to be angry with a dripping, smiling, friendly lady who emerges from the water at your feet.
"My dear lady——" he began, rather pompously but quite kindly.
"My name," she said, "is Eames, Agatha Eames, and my husband is vicar of the parish."
"Dear me!" said Sir Evelyn a little startled.
He had a fairly clear idea in his mind of what the wives of our country clergy are like, an idea formed on the descriptions of these ladies given by our novelists. They are elderly, angular, severe, conventional in their outlook on life and morals, inclined to bitter speaking of a slanderous kind, clothed in body and equipped in mind after the fashion of provincial spinsters of fifty years ago. The lady who looked up at him in no way corresponded to his mental picture of what a country vicar's wife ought to be.