Page:Rowland--In the shadow.djvu/31

 this bend; there's a nasty spot down stream a bit, an old weir that is just awash when the water's up like this."

"How exciting!" cried Virginia. She leaned back and watched him from beneath her curved lashes, darker than her hair, as he skillfully wielded the long pole, noting in delight the ease with which he handled it. There was to Virginia a fascinating quality in sheer physical strength either of man or beast. She loved to feel the powerful shoulders of a big Irish hunter working under the saddle as she rode; she liked to watch the tug that came on the traces of a heavy drag as a strong four breasted a sharp rise; she reveled in the leap of a shell under the oars of a lusty eight; there was something primitive in the exultation with which physical strength inspired her.

Since the week before, when she had fled from the tennis court, there had come between the two a new and odd restraint, a strange shyness on Virginia's part; an awkward embarrassment from Giles. Each realized the changed relations. It was for Giles to explain it, but he was lacking, not in courage, but in self-assurance. He appreciated that he was in love as much as it could be appreciated by a man for whom its course had always run smooth, and it filled him with a joyful misery, for he could not understand the possibility of a man like himself arousing any deeper sentiment than friendship in a woman of Virginia's talents. Her look had told him nothing; it spoke in a language which he did not understand, and each time it was recalled with a different interpretation.

Then it had rained for a week, and they had been shut up in the house, and grown fretful and doubtful 21