ngth: even his descent from the hammock was not an awkward
performance. His face and hands were of very dark complexion, either
from constant exposure to wind and sun, or, as his black hair and dark
eyes tended to show, from some strain of southern blood. His head was
small, his face of an exquisite beauty of modelling, while the
smoothness of its contour would have led you to believe that he was a
beardless lad still in his teens. But something, some look which living
and experience alone can give, seemed to contradict that, and finding
yourself completely puzzled as to his age, you would next moment
probably cease to think about that, and only look at this glorious
specimen of young manhood with wondering satisfaction.

He was dressed as became the season and the heat, and wore only a shirt
open at the neck, and a pair of flannel trousers. His head, covered
very thickly with a somewhat rebellious crop of short curly hair, was
bare as he strolled across the lawn to the bathing-place that lay
below. Then for a moment there was silence, then the sound of splashed
and divided waters, and presently after, a great shout of ecstatic joy,
as he swam up-stream with the foamed water standing in a frill round
his neck. Then after some five minutes of limb-stretching struggle with
the flood, he turned over on his back, and with arms thrown wide,
floated down-stream, ripple-cradled and inert. His eyes were shut, and
between half-parted lips he talked gently to himself.

"I am one with it," he said to himself, "the river and I, I and the
river. The coolness and splash of it is I, and the water-herbs that
wave in it are I also. And my strength and my limbs are not mine but
the river's. It is all one, all one, dear Fawn."

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour later he appeared again at the bottom of the lawn,
dressed as before, his wet hair already drying into its crisp short
curls again. Then he paused a moment, looking back at the stream with
the smile with which men look on the face of a friend, then turned
toward the house. Simultaneously his servant came to the door leading
on to the terrace, followed by a man who appeared to be some half-way
through the fourth decade of his years. Frank and he saw each other
across the bushes and garden-beds, and each quickening his step, they
met suddenly face to face round an angle of the garden walk, in the
fragrance of syringa.

"My dear Darcy," crie