“I’ll stay near the shore,” Dicky promised docilely. “You bet,” he added, “I don’t want to make a hole in the water.”
Shaking off his pedagogical duties, Arthur set off alone for the middle of the Pond, swimming with the long powerful strokes which characterized him, his head almost under water.
“What a stroke he has!” Maida commented admiringly. “I’d give anything if I could cut through the water like that. Why—why who’s that?”
Two heads appeared bobbing on the water at the other side of the lake. No one of the children had seen anybody emerge from the woods. The strangers must have come around the curve. The heads came forward straight towards the middle of the lake. Arthur had reached his goal; was floating placidly, his arms folded at the back of his neck. Involuntarily, the other children stood silent and watched. Nearer the two heads came to Arthur—nearer and nearer. One of them had thick tossed black hair; the other lighter hair, satiny as the inside of a nut where the sun caught it on the top of the head; wet and dark as strings of seaweed in the neck.
“It’s Silva and Tyma Burle,” Rosie exclaimed suddenly. “Oh how they can swim!”
The two young gypsies had drawn near enough to Arthur for the children to measure their progress.
“I never saw a girl swim like that,” Laura said with a touch of envy. “She swims just like a boy.”
Arthur, his ears sunk below the level of the water, had apparently heard nothing. But now suddenly he threw himself on his side and paddling just enough to keep afloat, watched the approaching pair in amazement.
On the Burles came, their eyes fixed on Arthur, their expressions quite non-committal. Arthur waited.