"My old one," she said to him when all was properly laid out, "do not
play at youth and innocence any longer. It takes an old sinner to order
such a breakfast."

It was a gay meal and a good one, and, like all good meals, led to
drowsiness. Cellette made a pillow of Lewis's coat and slept. The
afternoon was very hot. Leighton finished his second cigar, and then
tapped Lewis on the shoulder. They slipped beyond the screen of the
low-limbed beech, stripped, and stole into the river.

At the first thoughtless splash Cellette sprang to her feet.

"Ah!" she cried, her eyes lighting, "you bathe, _hein_?" She started
undoing her bodice.

Leighton stared at her from the water. "What do you do?" he cried in
rapid French. "You cannot bathe. I won't allow it."

Cellette paused in sheer amazement that any one should think there was
anything she could not do. Then deliberately she continued undoing
hooks.

"Why can't I bathe?" she asked out of courtesy or merely because she
knew the value of keeping up a conversation.

"You can't bathe," said Leighton, desperately, "because you are too
tender, too delicate. These waters are--miasmic. They are full of
snakes, too. It was just now that I stepped on one."

"Snakes, eh?" said Cellette, pausing again. "I don't believe you.