the foam, their thoughts slept like butterflies on the flowers of delight. But cold shadows startled them up.
“The clouds are coming,” he said regretfully.
“Yes; but the wind is quite strong enough for them,” she answered.
“Look at the shadows like blots floating away. Don’t they devour the sunshine?”
“It is quite warm enough here,” she said, nestling in to him.
“Yes; but the sting is missing. I like to feel the warmth biting in.”
“No, I do not. To be cosy is enough.”
“I like the sunshine on me, real, and manifest, and tangible. I feel like a seed that has been frozen for ages. I want to be bitten by the sunshine.”
She leaned over and kissed him. The sun came bright-footed over the water, leaving a shining print on Siegmund’s face. He lay, with half-closed eyes, sprawled loosely on the sand. Looking at his limbs, she imagined he must be heavy, like the boulders. She sat over him, with her finger stroking his eyebrows, that were broad and rather arched. He lay perfectly still, in a half-dream.
Presently she laid her head on his breast, and remained so, watching the sea, and listening to his heart-beats. The throb was strong and deep. It seemed to go through the whole island and the whole afternoon, and it fascinated her: so deep, unheard, with its great expulsions of life. Had the world a heart? Was there also deep in the world a great God thudding out waves of life, like a great heart, unconscious? It frightened her. This was the God she knew not, as she knew not this Siegmund. It was so different
