The coolness and splash of it is I, and the water-herbs that wave
in it are I also. And my strength and my limbs are not mine but the
river’s. It is all one, all one, dear Fawn.”

       *       *       *       *       *

A quarter of an hour later he appeared again at the bottom of the lawn,
dressed as before, his wet hair already drying into its crisp short
curls again. There he paused a moment, looking back at the stream with
the smile with which men look on the face of a friend, then turned
towards the house. Simultaneously his servant came to the door leading
on to the terrace, followed by a man who appeared to be some half-way
through the fourth decade of his years. Frank and he saw each other
across the bushes and garden-beds, and each quickening his step, they
met suddenly face to face round an angle of the garden walk, in the
fragrance of syringa. “My dear Darcy,” cried Frank, “I am charmed to see you.”

But the other stared at him in amazement. “Frank!” he exclaimed. “Yes, that is my name,” he said laughing, “what is the matter?”

Darcy took his hand. “What have you done to yourself?” he asked. “You are a boy again.”

“Ah, I have a lot to tell you,” said Frank. “Lots that you will hardly
believe, but I shall convince you----”

He broke off suddenly, and held up his hand. “Hush, there is my nightingale,” he said. The smile of recognition and welcome with which he had greeted his
friend faded from his face, and a look of rapt wonder took its place, as
of a lover listening to the voice of his beloved. His mouth parted
slightly, showing the white line of teeth, and his eyes looked out and
out till they seemed to Darcy to be focussed on things beyond the vision
of man. Then something perhaps startled the bird, for the song ceased. “Yes, lots to tell you,” he said. “Really I am delighted to see you. But you look rather white and pulled down; no wonder after that fever. And there is to be no nonsense about this visit. It is June now, you
stop here till you are fit to begin work again. Two months at least.”

“Ah, I can’t trespass quite to that extent.”

Frank took his arm and walked him down the grass. “Trespass? Who talks of trespass? I shall tell you quite openly when I
am tired of you, but you know when we had the studio together, we used
not to bore each other. However, it is ill talking of going away on the
moment of your arrival. Just a stroll to the river, and then it will be
dinner-time.”

Darcy took out his cigarette case, and offered it to the other. Frank laughed. “No, not for me. Dear me, I suppose I used to smoke once. How very odd!”

“Given it up?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I must have. Anyhow I don’t do it now. I would
as soon think of eating meat.”

“Another victim on the smoking altar of vegetarianism?”

“Victim?” asked Frank. “Do I strike you as such?”

He paused on the margin of the stream and whistled softly. Next moment a
moor-hen made its splashing flight across the river, and ran up the
bank. Frank took it very gently in his hands and stroked its head, as
the creature lay against his shirt. “And is the house among the reeds still secure?” he half-crooned to it. “And is the missus quite well, and are the neighbours flourishing? There, dear, home with you,” and he flung it into the air. “That bird’s very tame,” said Darcy, slightly bewildered. “It is rather,” said Frank, following its flight. *       *       *       *       *

During dinner Frank chiefly occupied himself in bringing himself
up-to-date in the movements and achievements of this old friend whom he
had not seen for six years. Those six years, it now appeared, had been
full of incident and success for Darcy; he had made a name for himself
as a portrait painter which bade fair to outlast the vogue of a couple
of seasons, and his leisure time had been brief. Then some four months
previously he had been through a severe attack of typhoid, the result of
which as concerns this story was that he had come down to this
sequestered place to recruit. “Yes, you’ve got on,” said Frank at the end. “I always knew you would. A.R.A. with more in prospect. Money? You roll in it, I suppose, and, O
Darcy, how much happiness have you had all these years? That is the only
imperishable possession. And how much have you learned? Oh, I don’t mean
in Art. Even I could have done well in that.”

Darcy laughed. “Done well? My dear fellow, all I have learned in these six years you
knew, so to speak, in your cradle. Your old pictures fetch huge prices. Do you never paint now?”

Frank shook his head. “No, I’m too busy,” he said. “Doing what? Please tell me. That is what everyone is for ever asking
me.”

“Doing? I suppose you would say I do nothing.”

Darcy glanced up at the brilliant young face opposite him. “It seems to suit you, that way of being busy,” he said. “Now, it’s your
turn. Do you read? Do you study? I remember you saying that it would do
us all--all us artists, I mean--a great deal of good if we would study
any one human face carefully for a year, without recording a line. Have
you been doing that?”

Frank shook his head again. “I mean exactly what I say,” he said, “I have been _doing_ nothing. And
I have never been so occupied. Look at me; have I not done something to
myself to begin with?”

“You are two years younger than I,” said Darcy, “at least you used to
be. You therefore are thirty-five. But had I never seen you before I
should say you were just twenty. But was it worth while to spend six
years of greatly-occupied life in order to look twenty? Seems rather
like a woman of fashion.”

Frank laughed boisterously. “First time I’ve ever been compared to that particular bird of prey,” he
said. “No, that has not been my occupation--in fact I am only very
rarely conscious that one effect of my occupation has been that. Of
course, it must have been if one comes to think of it. It is not very
important. Quite true my body has become young. But that is very little;
I have become young.”

Darcy pushed back his chair and sat sideways to the table looking at the
other. “Has that been your occupation then?” he asked. “Yes, that anyhow is one aspect of it. Think what youth means! It is the
capacity for growth, mind, body, spirit, all grow, all get stronger, all
have a fuller, firmer life every day. That is something, considering
that every day that passes after the ordinary man reaches the full-blown
flower of his strength, weakens his hold on life. A man reaches his
prime, and remains, we say, in his prime, for ten years, or perhaps
twenty. But after his primest prime is reached, he slowly, insensibly
weakens. These are the signs of age in you, in your body, in your art
probably, in your mind. You are less electric than you were. But I, when
I reach my prime--I am nearing it--ah, you shall see.”

The stars had begun to appear in the blue velvet of the sky, and to the
east the horizon seen above the black silhouette of the village was
growing dove-coloured with the approach of moon-rise.