The Day of His Youth

								

I think--challenged and cautioned them. Then a cry went up, "The raft!
the raft!" and they began swimming out, while the women on the bank
urged them not to dive, but to wait until to-morrow. I thought I had
seen all the sports of young creatures, but I never dreamed of anything
so full of happy delight in life as that one girl who climbed on the
raft without touching the hand a man offered to help her, and danced
about on it, laughing like a wood-thrush gone mad with joy, while the
other women shrieked in foolish snatches. Then a man dived from the
raft, and another. A woman called from shore, "Don't dive, Zoe,
to-night!" and suddenly I knew she was Zoe, and that she would dive and
that I must be with her. I knocked off my shoes, waded out, still in
the shadow, and swam toward the raft. As I neared it, there was one
splash after another; then they were coming up, and I was among them.
It seemed as if I had dreamed it, and knew how it would all happen; for
when her head, sleek as polished metal, came up beside me, I knew it
would, and that I should grasp her dress and swim back with her to
land. She was surprised; but quite mechanically she swam beside me.
"Let me alone, Tom," she said at last. "I don't want to go in." I had
guided her down the bank to my shadowy covert, and there we rose on our
feet in shallow water. Then she turned and looked at me. I was not Tom.
I was a stranger. I wondered if she would be frightened, if it was a
woman's way to scream; and, still worse, if the others would come. I
felt that if they did come to mar that one moment, I should kill them.
But she was scarcely even surprised. I saw a quiver at the corner of
her mouth.
"Will you tell me who you are?" she asked, in a very soft, cool voice.
"You must never dive again from that raft," said I, and my own voice
sounded rough and hard. "Pierre knew better than to let you anchor it
there. The water is too shallow. There are rocks."
"You are the hermit's son!" quite as if she had not heard me, and still
looking at me with a little smile.
"You have been in the water long enough," said I. "Go to your tent at
once and dress. In another minute you will be shivering."
At that she broke into laughter; it was like the moonlight ripple of
the lake.
"Sir, I obey," she said with a mock humility which enchanted me.
"Good-night." She walked up the bank, her wet skirt dripping as she
went. I stood dazed, foolish, looking after. Then as she threaded among
the trees toward the glimmer of a tent, I recovered myself and ran
after her.
"Tell me," I said in haste, "tell me, are you Zoe?"
She was walking on, and I kept pace with her, knowing how rash I was to
follow. She turned her head.
"Not to you," she answered, without pausing in her walk. "Good-night!"
and she was gone.
I know I found my boat, and that, as I rowed away, there were cries of
"Zoe!" from the swimmers who had missed her. I was dripping, but my