“Why do you call it that?”
“I can’t remember why. I suppose it comes out of some book. It’s only a puddle now, but you see that stream going through it? Well, a good deal of water comes down after heavy rains, and can’t get away at once, and the pool becomes quite large and beautiful. Then Freddy used to bathe there. He is very fond of it.”
“And you?”
He meant, “Are you fond of it?” But she answered dreamily, “I bathed here, too, till I was found out. Then there was a row.”
At another time he might have been shocked, for he had depths of prudishness within him. But now? with his momentary cult of the fresh air, he was delighted at her admirable simplicity. He looked at her as she stood by the pool’s edge. She was got up smart, as she phrased it, and she reminded him of some brilliant flower that has no leaves of its own, but blooms abruptly out of a world of green.
“Who found you out?”
“Charlotte,” she murmured. “She was stopping with us. Charlotte—Charlotte.”
“Poor girl!”
She smiled gravely. A certain scheme, from which hitherto he had shrunk, now appeared practical.
“Lucy!”
“Yes, I suppose we ought to be going,” was her reply.
“Lucy, I want to ask something of you that I have never asked before.”