"All systems of drainage, even that of the tide, being interesting to me," Stafford laughed. "And, Miss Freyne, bathing in October!"
Gheena merely replying it was better than in November, climbed out and dived skilfully; she came up to take a big breath, disappearing again.
"She will rise outside now," said Phil, fingering the rope which Matilda Freyne insisted on being carried by him.
A minute, almost two, Darby scraped and shuffled along the rocks, his teeth set, Stafford slipping past him easily.
"Is it this pool, Phil?" Stafford peered down beyond the Bridge.
"It is," said Phil, gathering sea-grass placidly.
Something alive had vanished under that wall of rock, down into the sucking cold depths, something at the mercy of the sea; the men bent over, both tense from fear.
"Phil, for God's sake! Does she do it often? Phil, come here!"
"She does so, sir, too often. I am gatherin' say-grass for the Misthress, sir, and won't she be plazed if there isn't enough."
"Say-grass, you Phil?" The green water stirred. Cobbles scurried madly away. Gheena's face parted the water.
"Po-oh!" She drew a long breath. "Po-oh! I got on slowly to-day somehow." She ran back, swam up the long pool and hurried off to dress.
"That submarine business," said Darby gloomily, looking down into the still pool.
"I don't like it," said Darby. "The slightest accident in that hole under the rock and----"
"She just takes her own way in everything," he went on. "Matilda will ask the angels' advice about her wings in Heaven; she never gave an order in her life, and Dearest George is so obsessed by his authority that the girl never takes any notice of him. She has no business to bathe at all in October, it's too cold; and what she meant by learning to hold her breath."
Basil Stafford jumped lightly over the narrow pool landing with a slight slip and stagger.
"It's ... a fine thing to have one's limbs," said Darby gently. "A very fine thing, Stafford, to be fit and able to move as a man should."
Stafford said nothing--it was the only thing to say. The unmarred side of Darby's face was turned towards him, lean, fine in its lines, with cleanly-cut features--the face of a man who had power to feel and to enjoy life.
"I'll be only one of many after this war," grunted Darby after a pause; "but, Lord, if I could have lost myself for my country, out there!"