band. But
some one, perhaps it was Robert, thought of a bath at that mystic hour
and under that mystic moon.

X

At all events Robert proposed it, and there was not a dissenting voice.
There was not one but was ready to follow when he led the way. He did
not lead the way, however, he directed the way; and he himself loitered
behind with the lovers, who had betrayed a disposition to linger and
hold themselves apart. He walked between them, whether with malicious or
mischievous intent was not wholly clear, even to himself.

The Pontelliers and Ratignolles walked ahead; the women leaning upon the
arms of their husbands. Edna could hear Robert's voice behind them,
and could sometimes hear what he said. She wondered why he did not join
them. It was unlike him not to. Of late he had sometimes held away from
her for an entire day, redoubling his devotion upon the next and the
next, as though to make up for hours that had been lost. She missed him
the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one
misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun
when it was shining.

The people walked in little groups toward the beach. They talked and
laughed; some of them sang. There was a band playing down at Klein's
hotel, and the strains reached them faintly, tempered by the distance.
There were strange, rare odors abroad--a tangle of the sea smell and of
weeds and damp, new-plowed earth, mingled with the heavy perfume of a
field of white blossoms somewhere near. But the night sat lightly upon
the sea and the land. There was no weight of darkness; there were no
shadows. The white light of the moon had fallen upon the world like the
mystery and the softness of sleep.

Most of them walked into the water as though into a native element. The
sea was quiet now, and swelled lazily in broad billows that melted into
one another and did not break except upon the beach in little foamy
crests that coiled back like slow, white serpents.

Edna had attempted all summer to learn to swim. She had received
instructions from both the men and women; in some instances from the
children. Robert had pursued a system of lessons almost daily; and he
was nearly at the point of discouragement in realizing the futility of
his efforts. A certain ungovernable dread hung about her when in the
water, unless there was a hand near by that might reach out and reassure
her.

But that night she was like the little