He stepped from the punt and ran lightly round the pond. Julia's wet fingers still held the flower. Her head hung a little down, so that the light from the water was thrown softly up on to her face. Her eyes, but her eyes only, moved as the sound of another plunge was heard; but it was only the other Du Pré and Southby. I did not speak. There would be time enough for talking after Derry had gone to bed--early. Then over by the house a gleam of white appeared. It was Derry with a robe of towelling over his shoulders. He did not take the path to the diving-board; instead, he dropped the towel on a grass border, looked aloft for a moment, and then took a straight run at one of the willows. It was a "cricket-bat" willow, and it overhung the diving-board at an angle out of the vertical. How he managed the leap I do not know, but in a moment he was up the tree like a squirrel, poised in the fork, laughing down at the surprised boys on the stage below. "Stand clear," he called. His path through the air was a swallow's. There was a soft plunge, a hissing effervescence as of black soda-water, and he shot to the surface again like a javelin, a dozen yards away. "Oh, ripping plunge, sir!" one of the boys called rapturously. "Jimmy! Did you see it? Did you see that?" "Come in--let's make a dog-fight of it!" Derry cried. And one after another they tumbled in and splashed towards him. I have been told that that Friday's four are still the envied of the whole school. He was very wonderful with them. The dog-fight over he set to work to coach them. They had never seen the stroke that consists of turning the left leg from the knee downwards into a screw-propeller, so that the swimmer travels forward, not in a series of impulses, but at a uniform rate of progress. He showed them in the water, and then hoisted himself to the diving-platform and showed them there. The stage became a comical waggling of nubile white legs. "No, no," his voice came to us, "from the knee--think of a screw--and about a six-inch stroke with your left hand--it's worth learning--makes swimming as easy as walking----" "Show us a racing-stroke, sir----" "Shut up, Jimmy. Is this right? It does catch your knee, though----" "Do that dive again, sir----" Then, when Derry judged they had had enough of it, he ordered them out. He himself did a final dash of the whole eighty yards and back again, while the water boiled behind him. Then he sought his wrap and disappeared into the house. "He's 'some' swimmer, isn't he?" said Julia softly. She had neither spoken nor moved. He was. But even I could see that he knew nothing of women. The bit of water-starwort was still in her hand. Suddenly with a little laugh she tossed it over the side. "Oughtn't he to have some tea?" she said....