speech went across their thoughtlessness like a star flying into the night, from nowhere. She had no idea why she said it. He pressed his mouth on hers. “Not for you,” he thought, by reflex. “You can’t go that way yet.” But he said nothing, strained her very tightly, and kept her lips.
They were roused by the sound of voices. Unclasping, they went to walk at the fringe of the water. The tide was creeping back. Siegmund stooped, and from among the water’s combings picked up an electric-light bulb. It lay in some weed at the base of a rock. He held it in his hand to Helena. Her face lighted with a curious pleasure. She took the thing delicately from his hand, fingered it with her exquisite softness.
“Isn’t it remarkable!” she exclaimed joyously. “The sea must be very, very gentle—and very kind.”
“Sometimes,” smiled Siegmund.
“But I did not think it could be so fine-fingered,” she said. She breathed on the glass bulb till it looked like a dim magnolia bud; she inhaled its fine savour.
“It would not have treated you so well,” he said. She looked at him with heavy eyes. Then she returned to her bulb. Her fingers were very small and very pink. She had the most delicate touch in the world, like a faint feel of silk. As he watched her lifting her fingers from off the glass, then gently stroking it, his blood ran hot. He watched her, waited upon her words and movements attentively.
“It is a graceful act on the sea’s part,” she said. “Wotan is so clumsy—he knocks over the bowl, and flap-flap-flap go the gasping fishes, pizzicato!—but the sea——”
Helena’s speech was often difficult to render into plain terms. She was not lucid.
