"It is April," I said weakly.
"But it's quite warm--it is really." And so I fell.
To you, O reader, it may seem a quite small matter, but to me it was far
from being so, for as I climbed the bank from each glad plunge I felt in
my blood a strange desire growing to do something, to achieve, to
surmount.
Such emotions I had not known for years--not since--a time, when, on a
day, I had set myself to love seclusion and inactivity, and to live in
study and retrospect, on the small means that were mine.
Ah, Tommy, never think that if any one desire be unfulfilled, life has
therefore lost its sweetness, and its mission, and its responsibility!
"Cave," hissed Tommy, from the water.
I held my breath, and sure enough there were voices along the path, and
close at hand, too.
I made a desperate leap, and entered the water with a quite colossal
flop, for I am moderately stout.
And, even so, I had barely time to wade in up to my neck, before two
figures, those of a little girl and a young lady, tripped into sight.
"Why," said the little girl, "there's old Mr. Mathews and a little boy
in the pool. How funny."
The young lady--it was Lady Chantrey's governess--hesitated a moment and
then courageously held on.
"Yes," I heard her say. "It certainly is peculiar, quite peculiar."
Whether she referred to me, or the situation, or an affair of previous
conversation, I did not know.
I did not, indeed, much care, for surely this was enough that I, a
philosopher of dignity, a bachelor of some importance, at any rate in
Camslove, should have been seen in a small pool, with only a draggled
head above the surface, by Lady Chantrey's daughter, and her governess.
I crept out, and had perforce to sit in the sun to dry, praying
earnestly lest any other members of the surrounding families should come
that way.
Tommy was in high spirits.
"It's done you lots of good," he said.