“It is all very glad,” said Siegmund to himself, “but it seems to me fanciful.”
He was out of it. Already he felt detached from life. He belonged to his destination. It is always so: we have no share in the beauty that lies between us and our goal.
Helena watched with poignant sorrow all the agitation of colour on the blue afternoon.
“We must leave it; we must pass out of it,” she lamented, over and over again. Each new charm she caught eagerly.
“I like the steady purpose of that brown-sailed tramp,” she said to herself, watching a laden coaster making for Portsmouth.
They were still among the small shipping of Ryde. Siegmund and Helena, as they looked out, became aware of a small motor-launch heading across their course towards a yacht whose tall masts were drawn clean on the sky. The eager launch, its nose up as if to breathe, was racing over the swell like a coursing dog. A lady, in white, and a lad with dark head and white jersey were leaning in the bows; a gentleman was bending over some machinery in the middle of the boat, while the sailor in the low stern was also stooping forward attending to something. The steamer was sweeping onwards, huge above the water; the dog of a boat was coursing straight across her track. The lady saw the danger first. Stretching forward, she seized the arm of the lad and held him firm, making no sound, but watching the forward menace of the looming steamer.
“Look!” cried Helena, catching hold of Siegmund. He was already watching. Suddenly the steamer bell
