Her washing was done; the wet clothing piled in her basket. Perspiration powdered her forehead and delicate little nose.
Hot, flushed, breathing deeply and irregularly from her efforts under a vertical sun, she stood erect, loosening the blouse over her bosom to the breeze and pushing back the clustering masses of hair above her brow.
The water laughed up at her, invitingly; the last floating castle of white foam swept past[pg 311] her feet down stream. On the impulse of the moment she unlaced her blue wool skirt, dropped it around her feet, stepped from it; unbuckled both garters, stripped slippers and stockings from her feet, and waded out into the pool.
The fresh, delicious coolness of the water thrilled and encouraged her to further adventure; she twisted up her splendid hair, bound it with her blue kerchief, flung blouse and chemisette from her, and gave herself to the sparkling stream with a sigh of ecstasy.
Alders swept the eastern edges of the current where the rivulet widened beyond the basin and ran south along the meadow's edge to the Wood of Sainte Lesse—a cool, unruffled flow, breast deep, floored with sand as soft as silver velvet.
She waded, floated, swam a little, or, erect, roamed leisurely along the alder fringe, exploring the dim green haunts of frog and water-hen, stoat and bécassine—a slim, wet dryad, gliding silently through sun and dappled shadow.
Where the stream comes to Sainte Lesse[pg 312] Wood, there is a hill set thick with hazel and clumps of fern, haunted by one roe-deer and numerous rabbits and pheasants.
She was close to its base, now, gliding through the shade like some lithe creature of the forest; making no sound save where the current curled around her supple body in twisted necklaces of liquid light.
Then, as she stood, peering cautiously through tangled branches for a glimpse of the little roe-deer, she heard a curious sound up on the hill—an inexplicable sound like metal striking stone.
She stood as though frozen; clink, clink came the distant sound. Then all was still. But presently she saw a scared cock-pheasant, crouching low with flattened neck outstretched, run like a huge rat through the hazel growth, out across the meadow.