'You see I can swim.'
'I was sure of it.'
They stopped their talk—for the pleasure of the body to be savoured in the mind, they thought; and so took Nature's counsel to rest their voices awhile.
Considering that she had not been used of late to long immersions, and had not broken her fast, and had talked much, for a sea-nymph, Weyburn spied behind him on a shore seeming flat down, far removed.
'France next time,' he said: 'we'll face to the rear.'
'Now?' said she, big with blissful conceit of her powers and incredulous of such a command from him.
'You may be feeling tired presently.'
The musical sincerity of her 'Oh no, not I!' sped through his limbs; he had a willingness to go onward still some way.
But his words fastened the heavy land on her spirit, knocked at the habit of obedience. Her stroke of the arms paused. She inclined to his example, and he set it shoreward.
They swam silently, high, low, creatures of the smooth green roller. He heard the water-song of her swimming. She, though breathing equably at the nostrils, lay deep. The water shocked at her chin, and curled round the under lip. He had a faint anxiety; and, not so sensible of a weight in the sight of land as she was, he chattered, by snatches, rallied her, encouraged her to continue sportive for this once, letting her feel it was but a once and had its respected limit with him. So it was not out of the world.