on the low sea-wall, spreading her fingers to warm on the stones, concocting magic out of the simple morning. She watched the indolent chasing of wavelets round the small rocks, the curling of the deep blue water round the water-shadowed reefs.
“This is very good,” she said to herself. “This is eternally cool, and clean and fresh. It could never be spoiled by satiety.”
She tried to wash herself with the white and blue morning, to clear away the soiling of the last night’s passion.
The sea played by itself, intent on its own game. Its aloofness, its self-sufficiency, are its great charm. The sea does not give and take, like the land and the sky. It has no traffic with the world. It spends its passions upon itself. Helena was something like the sea, self-sufficient and careless of the rest.
Siegmund came bareheaded, his black hair ruffling to the wind, his eyes shining warmer than the sea—like cornflowers rather, his limbs swinging backward and forward like the water. Together they leaned on the wall, warming the four white hands upon the grey bleached stone as they watched the water playing.
When Siegmund had Helena near, he lost the ache, the yearning towards something, which he always felt otherwise. She seemed to connect him with the beauty of things, as if she were the nerve through which he received intelligence of the sun, and wind, and sea, and of the moon and the darkness. Beauty she never felt herself came to him through her. It is that makes love. He could always sympathize with the wistful little flowers, and trees lonely in their crowds, and wild, sad sea-birds. In these things he
