“Any swimming to be done,” said Guy, “to be done in a straight line between this and the other bank. First man or woman who disobeys gets a crack on the head (a) from the bridge over there and (b) from me.”
“This wing’s getting a bit crowded,” sighed Hugo. “It’s a blessing we’re not French and haven’t nice warm underclothes as well.”
The glow of her cigarette lit Iris’s mouth and eyes. …
“I got one foot in the water,” she said at large.
“Taking the edge off our bathing!” Dear Hugo. …
“Now, wot’s all this about bathing?” said a Voice.
“Police! Puss, puss!”
“Didn’t I tell ’em!” panted the man in shirtsleeves. “Didn’t I! Told ’em it was against the lor.”
“Look here!” cried Venice from the pit of darkness. “Don’t you put that bull’s-eye this way, else God knows what you won’t see!”
“And he’ll never go back to his wife again,” sang Shirley. “I know men.”
“You ain’t allowed to swim here,” said the Voice tremendously. “Are they, Bill? Out of it, now!”
“I do wish,” Hugo said violently, “that perfect strangers wouldn’t force themselves on us like this. Anyone would think we were at a Royal Garden Party!”
The canoe rocked frantically. “Damn you, Guy!” said Napier. The constable turned his bull’s-eye to where he thought Guy’s face would be, then flashed it a foot higher.
“About this law,” murmured Guy.
“Now, sir,” said the Voice, rather pathetically I thought. “I don’t want to have no trouble.”
“The very word! I was just going to ask you if it would be troubling you too much to ask you to run up to your house to lend us some towels. It really would be very kind of you. Our friend here hasn’t brought us quite enough. …”
Splash!
“Look ’ere,” began the Voice desperately.
“Don’t look, constable! Be strong. Use your willpower. Women are but idle vanities.”
“Oo!” gurgled Venice. “If you only knew how lovely it was! Come on, everybody. Oh, it’s so warm!”
“Now remember, Venice—in a straight line between the banks.”
“That’s right, sir,” said the Voice.
“You and your banks!” sighed Shirley. Splash! “Ow, it’s freezing!”
“An’ it’s not their boat!” pleaded the man in shirtsleeves. “They got no right in that boat. It’s Lord Lamorna’s, that is.”
“Good Lord, Johnny’s! And he’s kept it hidden from us!” Splash! “Where are you, Venice? Shirley?”
“Napier, be careful!” cried Iris, laughed Iris. …
“Are you gentlemen saying as you’re friends of Lord Lamorna’s?” asked the voice.
“Friends!” said Hugo. “I won’t know him. We served together in Romano’s Riflemen, but now he’ll be jolly lucky if we don’t scuttle his boat. Owes me a fiver. Goodbye.”
The river was warm, soft, quiet. Most un-English were the waters of the Thames that night, most Italianate. Never before had one understood the verity of that phrase “on the bosom of the waters.”
From several yards away I could see the long shape of the motor-canoe. How Lamorna’s creditors would like to hear of that canoe! Hugo would blackmail him for his fiver. Dear Hugo. Suddenly the glow of Iris’s cigarette stabbed the darkness, and maybe that was her shadow there, and that the one foot in the water. …
“Who’s that?” she gasped.
I was anchored to her ankle. My hand could have gone twice round it.
“Take care of them,” she whispered. “Dear, take care of them. Keep your eyes on that Venice child. She’s reckless. Quick, and catch them up. I rely on you somehow—”
“You mustn’t, Iris. I am enemy to Iris Storm.”
“Oh, friends and enemies! One relies on what people are in themselves, no matter what circumstances may make them feel.”
“And circumstances, Iris—do they make a woman so heartless?”
“Heartless! That’s a large word, rather. Heartless? But maybe I am tired of being unhappy. So maybe I walked into a garden and built a high wall round it. Oh, may be, may be! Dear friend, go after them now. I am nervous, they’re so young. By their voices, they seem to have gone very far. …”
But from the water the voices seemed to come from within a foot of one’s ear. They must, I thought, be straight ahead, towards the opposite bank. Swiftly a whisper cut the water near me, past me. “Young slacker!” came Guy’s murmur. But I, not for exercise was I on the bosom of the waters that night. I lazed, listening to the voices ahead, sharp and clear across the water. Dimly, softly, clammy-cold, a weed would brush one. The stars were like the lance-points of a mighty host marching down to the chastisement of the world. But the darkness baffled them, whilst I floated into the heart of it, I loitered.
“Mind your head on this quay here, Venice! Venice! Hello, where’s Venice?”
“Here. I say, what’s this place?”
“Oh, my pretty dears, why isn’t one always in the water! I say, what’s this wooden thing?”
“Looks like a landing-stage to me. What? I say, Hugo, what’s this place? What?”
“Am I a graduate of Maidenhead, asking me? But let’s try the place, anyway.”
“I’ve heard there’s a River-Night-Club arrangement about here. Very exclusive.”
“We know. Excludes all who can’t crowd in. Come on. Me for wine.”
I found them, having almost broken my shins against a wooden affair, lying grouped on what Shirley said was unmistakably “a sweep of velvet sward.” Venice, it seemed, was exploring. You couldn’t see your hand before your face. But you didn’t want to.
“Funny,” sighed Hugo, “if chap, just any chap, probably quite a nice chap, but timid chap, wakes from sleep to see Venice looking in on him. Mermaid theory. …”
“Wot’s this?” snapped a voice. “You’re trespassing.”
“What did you think we were doing?” Napier asked mildly. “Playing dominoes?”
“Tell us what this place is,” said Shirley severely, “and perhaps we may let you go.”
“Gawd, don’t you know The River Club!”
“I knew it was,” said Hugo proudly, “as soon as I picked up a bus-ticket scented with Bacardie Rum—”
“But where’s Venice?” cried Shirley sharply, “Venice,
