Siegmund was glad. He rejoiced to be told he was beautiful. After a few moments of listening to the bees and breathing the mignonette, he said:
“I found a little white bay, just like you—a virgin bay. I had to swim there,”
“Oh!” she said, very interested in him, not in the fact.
“It seemed just like you. Many things seem like you,” he said.
She laughed again in her joyous fashion, and the reed-like vibration came into her voice.
“I saw the sun through the cliffs, and the sea, and you,” she said.
He did not understand. He looked at her searchingly. She was white and still and inscrutable. Then she looked up at him; her earnest eyes, that would not flinch, gazed straight into him. He trembled, and things all swept into a blur. After she had taken away her eyes he found himself saying:
“You know, I felt as if I were the first man to discover things: like Adam when he opened the first eyes in the world.”
“I saw the sunshine in you,” repeated Helena quietly, looking at him with her eyes heavy with meaning.
He laughed again, not understanding, but feeling she meant love.
“No, but you have altered everything,” he said.
The note of wonder, of joy, in his voice touched her almost beyond self-control. She caught his hand and pressed it; then quickly kissed it. He became suddenly grave.
