The two girls drifted swiftly along. In front of them, at the corner of the lake, near the road, was a mossy boat–house under a walnut tree, and a little landing–stage where a boat was moored, wavering like a shadow on the still grey water, below the green, decayed poles. All was shadowy with coming summer.

Suddenly, from the boat–house, a white figure ran out, frightening in its swift sharp transit, across the old landing–stage. It launched in a white arc through the air, there was a bursting of the water, and among the smooth ripples a swimmer was making out to space, in a centre of faintly heaving motion. The whole otherworld, wet and remote, he had to himself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey, uncreated water.

Gudrun stood by the stone wall, watching.

‘How I envy him,’ she said, in low, desirous tones.

‘Ugh!’ shivered Ursula. ‘So cold!’

‘Yes, but how good, how really fine, to swim out there!’ The sisters stood watching the swimmer move further into the grey, moist, full space of the water, pulsing with his own small, invading motion, and arched over with mist and dim woods.

‘Don’t you wish it were you?’ asked Gudrun, looking at Ursula.

‘I do,’ said Ursula. ‘But I’m not sure—it’s so wet.’

‘No,’ said Gudrun, reluctantly. She stood watching the motion on the bosom of the water, as if fascinated. He, having swum a certain distance, turned round and was swimming on his back, looking along the water at the two girls by the wall. In the faint wash of motion, they could see his ruddy face, and could feel him watching them.

‘It is Gerald Crich,’ said Ursula.

‘I know,’ replied Gudrun.

And she stood motionless gazing over the water at the face which washed up and down on the flood, as he swam steadily. From his separate element he saw them and he exulted to himself because of his own advantage, his possession of a world to himself. He was immune and perfect. He loved his own vigorous, thrusting motion, and the violent impulse of the very cold water against his limbs, buoying him up. He could see the girls watching him a way off, outside, and that pleased him. He lifted his arm from the water, in a sign to them.

‘He is waving,’ said Ursula.

‘Yes,’ replied Gudrun. They watched him. He waved again, with a strange movement of recognition across the difference.

‘Like a Nibelung,’ laughed Ursula. Gudrun said nothing, only stood still looking over the water.

Gerald suddenly turned, and was swimming away swiftly, with a side stroke. He was alone now, alone and immune in the middle of the waters, which he had all to himself. He exulted in his isolation in the new element, unquestioned and unconditioned. He was happy, thrusting with his legs and all his body, without bond or connection anywhere, just himself in the watery world.

Gudrun envied him almost painfully. Even this momentary possession of pure isolation and fluidity seemed to her so terribly desirable that she felt herself as if damned, out there on the high–road.