“Take off your shirt and pants and jump in. I’ll swim out and wait for you. Come on, now,” she commanded.
So he removed his outer garments, sitting in the bottom of the boat, and slid quickly and modestly into the water. “Isn’t it grand?” she called to him. “Come on out here.”
“We better not get too far from the boat,” he said cautiously, “she ain’t got any anchor, you know.”
“We can catch it. It won’t drift fast. Come on out here, and I’ll race you back to it.”
He swam out to where her dark wet head awaited him. “I bet I beat you,” she challenged. “Are you ready? One. Two. Three—Go!” And she did beat him and with a single unceasing motion she slid upward and into the tender, and stood erect for the moonlight to slide over her in hushed silver.
“I’ll plunge for distance with you,” she now challenged. David hung by his hands, submerged to his neck. She waited for him to get into the skiff, then she said: “You can dive, can’t you?” But he still clung to the gunwale, looking up at her. “Come on, David,” she said sharply. “Are you timid, or what? I’m not going to look at you, if you don’t want me to.” So he got into the boat, modestly keeping his back to her, but even his wet curious garment could not make ridiculous the young lean splendor of him.
“I don’t see what you are ashamed of. You’ve got a good physique,” she told him. “Tall and hard looking. . . . Are you ready? One. Two. Three—Go!”
But soon she was content to float on her back and recover breath, while he trod water beside her. Little hands of water lapped at her, in her hair and upon her face, and she breathed deeply, closing her eyes against the bland waning moon.
