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.
'But life's so full of anti-climax,' she concluded. Siegmund smiled
softly at her. She had him too much in love to disagree or to examine
her words.
'There's no reckoning with life, and no reckoning with the sea. The only
way to get on with both is to be as near a vacuum as possible, and
float,' he jested. It hurt her that he was flippant. She proceeded to
forget he had spoken.
There were three children on the beach. Helena had handed him back the
senseless bauble, not able to throw it away. Being a father: 'I will give it to the children,' he said.
She looked up at him, loved him for the thought.
Wandering hand in hand, for it pleased them both to own each other
publicly, after years of conventional distance, they came to a little
girl who was bending over a pool. Her black hair hung in long snakes to
the water. She stood up, flung back her locks to see them as they
approached. In one hand she clasped some pebbles.
'Would you like this? I found it down there,' said Siegmund, offering
her the bulb.