Gillian shook her head lazily.
“I think not to-day. I want to finish this overall for Coppertop. And it’s such a long trudge from here down to the river.”
“Yes, I know.” Magda nodded. “It’s three interminable fields away—and the thistles and things prick one’s ankles abominably. Still, it’s lovely when you do get there! I think I’ll go now”—springing up from the velvet turf—“before I get too lazy to move.”
Gillian’s eyes followed her thoughtfully as she made her way into the house. She had never seen Magda so restless—she seemed unable to keep still a moment.
Half an hour later Magda emerged from the house wrapped in a cloak, a little scarlet bathing-cap turbanning her dark hair, and a pair of sandals on the slim supple feet that had danced their way into the hearts of half of Europe.
“Good-bye!” she called gaily, waving her hand. And went out by the wicket gate leading into the fields.
There was not a soul in sight. Only the cows, their red, burnished coats gleaming like the skin of a horse-chestnut in the hot sun, cast ruminative glances at her white-cloaked figure as it passed, and occasionally a peacefully grazing sheep emitted an astonished bleat at the unusual vision and skedaddled away in a hurry.
Magda emulated Agag in her progress across the field which intervened between the house and the river, now and then giving vent to a little cry of protest as a particularly prickly thistle or hidden trail of bramble whipped against her bare ankles.
At last from somewhere near at hand came the cool gurgle of running water and, bending her steps in the direction of the sound, two minutes’ further walking brought her to the brink of the river. Further up it came tumbling through the valley, leaping the rocks in a churning torrent of foam, a cloud of delicate up-flung spray feathering the air above it; but here there were long stretches of deep, smooth water where no boulder broke the surface into spume, and quiet pools where fat little trout heedlessly squandered the joyous moments of a precarious existence.
Magda threw off her wrapper and, picking her way across the moss-grown rocks, paused for an instant on the bank, her slender figure, clad in its close-fitting scarlet bathing-suit, vividly outlined against the surrounding green of the landscape. Then she plunged in and struck out downstream, swimming with long, even strokes, the soft moorland water laving her throat like the touch of a satin-smooth hand.