The two strolled on,—none too soon, for the water was glacial to her cramped body, her fingers were rigid upon the willow-roots, and her teeth were rattling in her head.
She heard from Martin:
‘When I was in Paris with Roddy——’
And then after a long pause, Julian’s voice suddenly raised: ‘But what if you bored yourself ... day after day ... to myself: Christ! You bloody bore....’
The voices sank into confusion and ceased; but in the ensuing silence they seemed to follow her and repeat themselves, charged with the portentous significance of all overheard fragments of speech; so that she felt herself guiltily possessed of the secrets of their hearts.
The moon shone full on the garden bank when she lifted herself out, exhausted, and lay down on the grass.
Around her the shadows stood still. Her body in the moonlight was transfigured into lines of such mysterious purity that it seemed composed less of flesh than of light. She thought: “Even if they had seen me they wouldn’t have thought me real.”... Martin would have been astonished if not shocked; he would have turned politely away, but Julian would have appraised her curves, critically and with interest. And Roddy,—Roddy was so long ago he was incalculable. But if that someone dark and curious, with Roddy’s face, cherished for years in the part of you which perceived without eyes and knew without reason,—if he had seen, he would have watched closely, and then withdrawn himself from the seduction, from the inconvenience of his own pang; and watched from afar, in silence.
“Oh, Roddy, when will you come and reveal yourself?”
The swim home had warmed her, but now, in spite of excited pulses, she felt the cold beginning to strike deeply. She got up and stood still a moment: soon she must hide her silver-white body in the cloak, and then it would cease to be a miracle.
As she stooped for the garment, she heard the long soft ripple and plash of a paddle; a canoe stole into view, floating down full in the middle of the stream. She gathered her dark cape round her and stepped back into the shadows; and as she watched the solitary figure in the stern she forgot to breathe.