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.