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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.eward.

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 s.n.a.t.c.hes, 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.

Ah, friend Matey! And that was right and good on land; but rightness and goodness flung earth's shadow across her brilliancy here, and any stress on 'this once' withdrew her liberty to revel in it, putting an end to perfect holiday; and silence, too, might hint at fatigue. She began to think her muteness lost her the bloom of the enchantment, robbing her of her heavenly frolic lead, since friend Matey resolved to be as eminently good in salt water as on land. Was he unaware that they were boy and girl again?--she washed pure of the intervening years, new born, by blessing of the sea; worthy of him here!--that is, a swimmer worthy of him, his comrade in salt water.

'You're satisfied I swim well?' she said.

'It would go hard with me if we raced a long race.'

'I really was out for France.'

'I was ordered to keep you for England.' She gave him Browny's eyes.

'We've turned our backs on Triton.'

'The ceremony was performed.'

'When?'

'The minute I spoke of it and you splashed.'

'Matey! Matey Weyburn!'

'Browny Farrell!'

'Oh, Matey! she's gone!'

'She's here.'

'Try to beguile me, then, that our holiday's not over. You won't forget this hour?'

'No time of mine on earth will live so brightly for me.'

'I have never had one like it. I could go under and be happy; go to old Triton, and wait for you; teach him to speak your proper Christian name. He hasn't heard it yet,--heard "Matey,"--never yet has been taught "Matthew."'

'Aminta!'

'Oh, my friend! my dear!' she cried, in the voice of the wounded, like a welling of her blood: 'my strength will leave me. I may play--not you: you play with a weak vessel. Swim, and be quiet. How far do you count it?'

'Under a quarter of a mile.'

'Don't imagine me tired.'

'If you are, hold on to me.'

'Matey, I'm for a dive.'

He went after the ball of silver and bubbles, and they came up together.

There is no history of events below the surface.

She shook off her briny blindness, and settled to the full sweep of the arms, quite silent now. Some emotion, or exhaustion from the strain of the swimmer's breath in speech, stopped her playfulness. The pleasure she still knew was a recollection of the outward swim, when she had been privileged to cast away s.e.x with the push from earth, as few men will believe that women, beautiful women, ever wish to do; and often and ardently during the run ahead they yearn for Nature to grant them their one short holiday truce.

But Aminta forgave him for bringing earth so close to her when there was yet a s.p.a.ce of salt water between her and sh.o.r.e; and she smiled at times, that he might not think she was looking grave.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PLIGHTING

They touched sand at the first draw of the ebb, and this being earth, Matey addressed himself to the guardian and absolving genii of matter-of-fact, by saying; 'Did you inquire about the tides?'

Her head shook, stunned with what had pa.s.sed. She waded to sh.o.r.e, after motioning for him to swim on. Men, in comparison beside their fair fellows, are so little sensationally complex, that his one feeling now, as to what had pa.s.sed, was relief at the idea of his presence having been a warrantable protectorship.

Aminta's return from the sea-nymph to the state of woman crossed annihiliation on the way back to sentience, and picked up meaningless pebbles and sh.e.l.ls of life, between the sea's verge and her tent's shelter; hardly her own life to her understanding yet, except for the hammer Memory became, to strike her insensible, at here and there a recollected word or nakedness of her soul.

He swam along by the sh.o.r.e to where the boat was paddled, spying at her bare feet on the sand, her woman's form. He waved, and the figure in the striped tunic and trousers waved her response, apparently the same person he had quitted.

Dry and clad, and decently formal under the transformation, they met at Mrs. Collett's breakfast-table, and in each hung the doubt whether land was the dream or sea. Both owned to a swim; both omitted mention of the tale of white ducks. Little Collett had brought Matey's and his portmanteau into the house, by favour of the cook, through the scullery.

He, who could have been a pictorial and suggestive narrator, carried a spinning head off his shoulders from this wonderful Countess of Ormont to Matey Weyburn's dark-eyed Browny at High Brent, and the Sunday walk in Sir Peter Wensell's park. Away and back his head went. Browny was not to be thought of as Browny; she was this grand Countess of Ormont; she had married Matey Weyburn's hero: she would never admit she had been Browny. Only she was handsome then, and she is handsome now; and she looks on Matey Weyburn now just as she did then. How strange is the world! Or how if we are the particular person destined to encounter the strange things of the world? And fancy J. Masner, and Pinnett major, and young Oakes (liked nothing better than a pretty girl, he strutted boasting at thirteen), and the Frenchy, and the lot, all popping down at the table, and asked the name of the lady sitting like Queen Esther--how they would roar out! Boys, of course--but men, too!--very few men have a notion of the extraordinary complications and coincidences and cracker-surprises life contains. Here 's an instance; Matey Weyburn positively will wear white ducks to play before Aminta Farrell on the first of May cricketing-day. He happens to have his white ducks on when he sees the Countess of Ormont swimming in the sea; and so he can go in just as if they were all-right bathing-drawers. In he goes, has a good long swim with her, and when he comes out, says, of his dripping ducks, 'tabula votiva... avida vestimenta,' to remind an old schoolmate of his hopping to the booth at the end of a showery May day, and dedicating them to the laundry in these words. It seems marvellous. It was a quaint revival, an hour after breakfast, for little Collett to be acting as intermediary with Selina to request Lady Ormont's grant of a five-minutes' interview before the church-bell summoned her. She was writing letters, and sent the message: 'Tell Mr. Weyburn I obey.' Selina delivered it, uttering 'obey' in a demurely comical way, as a word of which the humour might be comprehensible to him.

Aminta stood at the drawing-room window. She was asking herself whether her recent conduct shrieked coquette to him, or any of the abominable t.i.tles showered on the women who take free breath of air one day after long imprisonment.

She said: 'Does it mean you are leaving us?' the moment he was near.

'Not till evening or to-morrow, as it may happen,' he answered: 'I have one or two things to say, if you will spare the time.'

'All my time,' said she, smiling to make less of the heart's reply; and he stepped into the room.

They had not long back been Matey and Browny, and though that was in another element, it would not sanction the Lady Ormont and Mr. Weyburn now. As little could it be Aminta and Matthew. Brother and sister they were in the spirit's world, but in this world the t.i.tles had a sound of imposture. And with a great longing to call her by some allying name, he rejected 'friend' for its insufficiency and commonness, notwithstanding the entirely friendly nature of the burden to be spoken. Friend, was a t.i.tle that ran on quicksands: an excuse that tried for an excuse. He distinguished in himself simultaneously, that the hesitation and beating about for a name had its origin in an imperfect frankness when he sent his message: the fretful desire to be with her, close to her, hearing her, seeing her, besides the true wish to serve her. He sent it after swinging round abruptly from an outlook over the bordering garden tamarisks on a sea now featureless, desolately empty.

However, perceptibly silence was doing the work of a scourge, and he said: 'I have been thinking I may have--and I don't mind fighting hard to try it before I leave England on Tuesday or Wednesday--some influence with Lady Charlotte Eglett. She is really one of the true women living, and the heartiest of backers, if she can be taught to see her course. I fancy I can do that. She 's narrow, but she is not one of the cla.s.s who look on the working world below them as, we'll say, the scavenger dogs on the plains of Ilium were seen by the Achaeans. And my failure would be no loss to you! Your name shall not be alluded to as empowering me to plead for her help. But I want your consent, or I may be haunted and weakened by the idea of playing the busy-body. One has to feel strong in a delicate position. Well, you know what my position with her has been--one among the humble; and she has taken contradictions, accepted views from me, shown me she has warmth of heart to an extreme degree.'

Aminta slightly raised her hand. 'I will save you trouble. I have written to Lord Ormont. I have left him.'

Their eyes engaged on the thunder of this. 'The letter has gone?'

'It was posted before my swim: posted yesterday.'