hips. She halted at the bend,
looked back, then, with an impatient gesture, disappeared.

Antonia was slipping from him!

A moment's vision from without himself would have shown him that it was
he who moved and she who was standing still, like the figure of one
watching the passage of a stream with clear, direct, and sullen eyes.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE RIVER

One day towards the end of August Shelton took Antonia on the river--the
river that, like soft music, soothes the land; the river of the reeds and
poplars, the silver swan-sails, sun and moon, woods, and the white
slumbrous clouds; where cuckoos, and the wind, the pigeons, and the weirs
are always singing; and in the flash of naked bodies, the play of
waterlily leaves, queer goblin stumps, and the twilight faces of the
twisted tree-roots, Pan lives once more.

The reach which Shelton chose was innocent of launches, champagne bottles
and loud laughter; it was uncivilised, and seldom troubled by these
humanising influences. He paddled slowly, silent and absorbed, watching
Antonia. An unaccustomed languor clung about her; her eyes had shadows,
as though she had not slept; colour glowed softly in her cheeks, her
frock seemed all alight with golden radiance. She made Shelton pull into
the reeds, and plucked two rounded lilies sailing like ships against
slow-moving water.

"Pull into the shade, please," she said; "it's too hot out here."

The brim of her linen hat kept the sun from her face, but her head was
drooping like a flower's head at noon.

Shelton saw that the heat was really harming her, as too hot a day will
dim the icy freshness of a northern plant. He dipped his sculls, the
ripples started out and swam in grave diminuendo till they touched the
banks.

He shot the boat into a cleft, and caught the branches of an overhanging
tree. The skiff rested, balancing with mutinous vibration, like a living
thing.

"I should hate to live in London," said Antonia suddenly; "the slums must
be so awful. What a pity, when there are places like this! But it's no
good thinking."

"No," answered Shelton slowly! "I suppose it is no good."

"There are some bad cottages at the lower end of Cross Eaton. I went
them one day with Miss Truecote. The people won't help themselves. It's
so discouraging to help people who won't help themselves."

She was leaning her elbows on her knees, and, with her chin resting on
her hands, gazed up at Shelton. All aro