ds from shore. He swam in a big semi-circle. Now he was returning.
She was glad he was coming back. It seemed to her that he had been long
enough in the autumn-chilled water.... But now he seemed to have stopped
swimming. Ah, he was treading water. She felt a little vexed with him
for lingering--but then, she realised that this was to be his last free,
vigorous pleasure for so long. Still, he really should be coming back.
She stood up and called him:

"Cecil!... Do come out!"

She could see his face plainly. All at once she gave a startled
movement. He was answering her with grimaces ... frightful grimaces. She
knew his sardonic ideas of "fun," but this struck her as unnatural ...
cruel.

"Don't ... don't...." she cried to him. "You frighten me.... Come back!"

The Padrone had approached again.

"_Il signore ama scherzare_" (The gentleman likes fun), he observed,
smiling. Sophy did not hear him. Half frightened, half indignant, she
was staring at the grimacing face. All this had passed within a few
seconds. Suddenly Cecil went under---- She held her breath.

"_Che Ercole!_" (What a Hercules!), observed the Padrone admiringly.

But she was holding her breath with the man under water. It seemed to
her as though he would never come up again. Then she saw him. And still
he made those odious grimaces. But now he called something. What was it?
Her heart checked. It seemed to her that he cried "Help!" and as he
cried it, he went under the second time.

All at once the Padrone gave a howl of terror.

"_Ma! s'annega! s'annega!_" (He's drowning! He's drowning!), screamed
the man.

In an instant the terrace swarmed with shouting people. Sophy rushed
blindly for the shore. The crowd, still shouting, pressed after her. The
water for yards out was horribly smooth. No object broke its surface.

"Help! Help!" Sophy cried, strangling. She looked for men to plunge at
once into the Lake. Not one did so. A voice called: "A chair! Throw him
a chair!" She dashed knee-deep into the water. Some one dragged her
back. She was struggling with two cowards who dragged her back from that
smooth, tranquil expanse under which Cecil was suffocating. A woman
threw her arms around her, sobbing, "_Poverina! Poverina! E matta_...."
She fought wildly against the heaving, enveloping breast of this woman.

"Cowards!" she cried. The Italian word came to her, "_Vigliacchi!
Vigliacchi!_" she raged at them, beating the woman's heavy breast with
her