`Wasn't this bound to happen?' said Gudrun, with heavy hateful irony.But he hardly heard, and she glanced over her shoulder to see her way.The half-dark waters were sprinkled with lovely bubbles of swaying lights, the launch did not look far off.She was rocking her lights in the early night.Gudrun rowed as hard as she could.But now that it was a serious matter, she seemed uncertain and clumsy in her stroke, it was difficult to paddle swiftly.She glanced at his face.He was looking fixedly into the darkness, very keen and alert and single in himself, instrumental.
Her heart sank, she seemed to die a death.`Of course,' she said to herself, `nobody will be drowned.Of course they won't.It would be too extravagant and sensational.' But her heart was cold, because of his sharp impersonal face.It was as if he belonged naturally to dread and catastrophe, as if he were himself again.
Then there came a child's voice, a girl's high, piercing shriek:
`Di -- Di -- Di -- Di -- Oh Di -- Oh Di -- Oh Di!'
The blood ran cold in Gudrun's veins.
`It's Diana, is it,' muttered Gerald.`The young monkey, she'd have to be up to some of her tricks.'
And he glanced again at the paddle, the boat was not going quickly enough for him.It made Gudrun almost helpless at the rowing, this nervous stress.
She kept up with all her might.Still the voices were calling and answering.
`Where, where? There you are -- that's it.Which? No -- No-o-o.Damn it all, here, here --' Boats were hurrying from all directions to the scene, coloured lanterns could be seen waving close to the surface of the lake, reflections swaying after them in uneven haste.The steamer hooted again, for some unknown reason.Gudrun's boat was travelling quickly, the lanterns were swinging behind Gerald.
And then again came the child's high, screaming voice, with a note of weeping and impatience in it now:
`Di -- Oh Di -- Oh Di -- Di --!'
It was a terrible sound, coming through the obscure air of the evening.
`You'd be better if you were in bed, Winnie,' Gerald muttered to himself.
He was stooping unlacing his shoes, pushing them off with the foot.
Then he threw his soft hat into the bottom of the boat.
`You can't go into the water with your hurt hand,' said Gudrun, panting, in a low voice of horror.
`What? It won't hurt.'
He had struggled out of his jacket, and had dropped it between his feet.
He sat bare-headed, all in white now.He felt the belt at his waist.They were nearing the launch, which stood still big above them, her myriad lamps making lovely darts, and sinuous running tongues of ugly red and green and yellow light on the lustrous dark water, under the shadow.
`Oh get her out! Oh Di, darling! Oh get her out! Oh Daddy, Oh Daddy!' moaned the child's voice, in distraction.Somebody was in the water, with a life belt.Two boats paddled near, their lanterns swinging ineffectually, the boats nosing round.
`Hi there -- Rockley! -- hi there!'
`Mr Gerald!' came the captain's terrified voice.`Miss Diana's in the water.'
`Anybody gone in for her?' came Gerald's sharp voice.
`Young Doctor Brindell, sir.'
`Where?'
`Can't see no signs of them, sir.Everybody's looking, but there's nothing so far.'
There was a moment's ominous pause.
`Where did she go in?'
`I think -- about where that boat is,' came the uncertain answer, `that one with red and green lights.'
`Row there,' said Gerald quietly to Gudrun.
`Get her out, Gerald, oh get her out,' the child's voice was crying anxiously.He took no heed.
`Lean back that way,' said Gerald to Gudrun, as he stood up in the frail boat.`She won't upset.'
In another moment, he had dropped clean down, soft and plumb, into the water.Gudrun was swaying violently in her boat, the agitated water shook with transient lights, she realised that it was faintly moonlight, and that he was gone.So it was possible to be gone.A terrible sense of fatality robbed her of all feeling and thought.She knew he was gone out of the world, there was merely the same world, and absence, his absence.The night seemed large and vacuous.Lanterns swayed here and there, people were talking in an undertone on the launch and in the boats.She could hear Winifred moaning: ` Oh do find her Gerald, do find her ,' and someone trying to comfort the child.Gudrun paddled aimlessly here and there.The terrible, massive, cold, boundless surface of the water terrified her beyond words.
Would he never come back? She felt she must jump into the water too, to know the horror also.
She started, hearing someone say: `There he is.' She saw the movement of his swimming, like a water-rat.And she rowed involuntarily to him.
But he was near another boat, a bigger one.Still she rowed towards him.
She must be very near.She saw him -- he looked like a seal.He looked like a seal as he took hold of the side of the boat.His fair hair was washed down on his round head, his face seemed to glisten suavely.She could hear him panting.
Then he clambered into the boat.Oh, and the beauty of the subjection of his loins, white and dimly luminous as be climbed over the side of the boat, made her want to die, to die.The beauty of his dim and luminous loins as be climbed into the boat, his back rounded and soft -- ah, this was too much for her, too final a vision.She knew it, and it was fatal The terrible hopelessness of fate, and of beauty, such beauty!
He was not like a man to her, he was an incarnation, a great phase of life.She saw him press the water out of his face, and look at the bandage on his hand.And she knew it was all no good, and that she would never go beyond him, he was the final approximation of life to her.
`Put the lights out, we shall see better,' came his voice, sudden and mechanical and belonging to the world of man.She could scarcely believe there was a world of man.She leaned round and blew out her lanterns.They were difficult to blow out.Everywhere the lights were gone save the coloured points on the sides of the launch.The blueygrey, early night spread level around, the moon was overhead, there were shadows of boats here and there.