In the Time of Greenbloom Read Online Free Page B

darkness vigorously with his feet and broke into the air and the light.
    Thin as the ivory tusk in the hall she was standing on the very edge of the platform; on her slender thighs and the naked curve of her stomach, the shaken water threw green and shifting shadows. Something about the narrow sweep of her waist rising to the early fullness of her breasts hurt him like a pain so that he gasped out loud and then raised his eyes to her face as she leaned over him, dipping her lips and eyes into those reflected greens which were playing over the surfaces of her body.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” she asked. “Is it very cold?”
    Through the ringing of the water in his ears her voice came to him indistinctly like chimes in the wind and he could only look up at her, shaking the water from his hair and plucking at the slippery stem of a water-lily leaf which had twined itself round his shoulders.
    â€œHere!” she said as, kneeling, she put her hands down to him, “let me help you.”
    He grasped them and she pulled him in to the platform so that he could grip it and heave himself up quickly beside her.
    â€œAll right?” she asked.
    â€œYes.” He got to his feet and stood before her. “Why?” She said. “What happened? Did you get stuck in the mud or something?”
    â€œNo, it wasn’t that.”
    â€œWell, what was it? You’re so pale—you’re paler than me now. What frightened you?”
    â€œI don’t know. You wouldn’t understand.”
    â€œYes I would.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt was
me
, wasn’t it? Seeing me when you came up?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou
see
!” She danced briefly. “I told you I knew, didn’t I?”
    â€œAll the same”—and she was suddenly still beneath her frown—“I don’t quite see why—?”
    He was shivering and for some reason he felt suddenly angry; he bit hard on his teeth.
    â€œWell, I’ll tell you. It may sound stupid but I was frightened because when I first saw you I thought for a moment that you were
me
—and yet I knew you weren’t. See if you can understand
that
if you’re so clever!”
    She looked him up and down intently. “Of course I can; it was I who told you how alike we were in the first place; and yet of course we’re completely different—we must be, because I’m a girl and you’re—”
    â€œThat’s just what I mean; we are and we aren’t,” he said. “And after being down there where it was dark,” he pointed at the water, “it frightened me; that’s all.”
    â€œWell I don’t see that it’s anything to be frightened about.” She was laughing now. “I think it’s exciting and lovely to be the same and yet different.” She took his hand. “Help me in will you? I don’t want to get my hair wet because it’ll never get dry in time.”
    With no pause she had dropped quickly to her knees and lowered her legs over the edge of the platform. Stooping down behind her he put his hands under her shoulders, and as she swung away from him he let her slip gently into the water.
    She was silent for a moment as she took the sudden shock of the coldness against her sun-warmed skin. A black streamer of her hair snaked across her cheek, its tail clinging to the corner of her mouth as though it had just emerged. Her eyes laughed up at him.
    â€œOoh, lovely lovely water,” she said as she started rather unsteadily to swim away towards the middle of the lake. He watched her uneasily for a moment.
    â€œDon’t go too far,” he said. “It’s very deep—
I
never even reached the bottom.”
    â€œI’m going to that blue bit,” she called. “Right in the very middle where the sun is.”
    He sat down and started to pick the little tendrils of water-weed from between his toes. She had laughed at him; that