The moment passed, and her thoughts hurried forward in confusion.
“It is good,” said Helena; “it is very good.” She looked again, and saw the waves like a line of children racing hand in hand, the sunlight pursuing, catching hold of them from behind, as they ran wildly till they fell, caught, with the sunshine dancing upon them like a white dog.
“It is really wonderful here!” said she; but the moment had gone, she could not see again the grand burning of God among the waves. After a while she turned away.
As she stood dabbling her bathing dress in a pool, Siegmund came over the beach to her.
“You are not gone, then?” he said.
“Siegmund!” she exclaimed, looking up at him with radiant eyes, as if it could not be possible that he had joined her in this rare place. His face was glowing with the sun’s inflaming, but Helena did not notice that his eyes were full of misery.
“I, actually,” he said, smiling.
“I did not expect you,” she said, still looking at him in radiant wonder. “I could easier have expected”—she hesitated, struggled, and continued—“Eros walking by the sea. But you are like him,” she said, looking radiantly up into Siegmund’s face. “Isn’t it beautiful this morning?” she added.
Siegmund endured her wide, glad look for a moment, then he stooped and kissed her. He remained moving his hand in the pool, ashamed, and full of contradiction. He was at the bitter point of farewell; could see, beyond the glamour around him, the ugly building of his real life.
