"No," he replied, smiling brilliantly at her, and stretching his handsome limbs in relief--"no, not at all tired now."
Helena continued to look down on him in quiet, covering tenderness. But she quailed before the brilliant, questioning gaze of his eyes.
"You must go to bed early tonight," she said, turning aside her face, ruffling his soft black hair. He stretched slightly, stiffening his arms, and smiled without answering. It was a very keen pleasure to be thus alone with her and in her charge. He rose, bidding her wrap herself up against the fog.
"You are sure you"re not too tired?" she reiterated.
He laughed.
Outside, the sea-mist was white and woolly. They went hand in hand. It was cold, so she thrust her hand with his into the pocket of his overcoat, while they walked together.
"I like the mist," he said, pressing her hand in his pocket.
"I don"t dislike it," she replied, shrinking nearer to him.
"It puts us together by ourselves," he said. She plodded alongside, bowing her head, not replying. He did not mind her silence.
"It couldn"t have happened better for us than this mist," he said.
She laughed curiously, almost with a sound of tears.
"Why?" she asked, half tenderly, half bitterly.
"There is nothing else but you, and for you there is nothing else but me--look!"
He stood still. They were on the downs, so that Helena found herself quite alone with the man in a world of mist. Suddenly she flung herself sobbing against his breast. He held her closely, tenderly, not knowing what it was all about, but happy and unafraid.
In one hollow place the siren from the Needles seemed to bellow full in their ears. Both Siegmund and Helena felt their emotion too intense.
They turned from it.
"What is the pitch?" asked Helena.
"Where it is horizontal? It slides up a chromatic scale," said Siegmund.
"Yes, but the settled pitch--is it about E?"
"E!" exclaimed Siegmund. "More like F."
"Nay, listen!" said Helena.
They stood still and waited till there came the long booing of the fog-horn.
"There!" exclaimed Siegmund, imitating the sound. "That is not E." He repeated the sound. "It is F."
"Surely it is E," persisted Helena.
"Even F sharp," he rejoined, humming the note.
She laughed, and told him to climb the chromatic scale.
"But you agree?" he said.
"I do not," she replied.
The fog was cold. It seemed to rob them of their courage to talk.
"What is the note in _Tristan_?" Helena made an effort to ask.
"That is not the same," he replied.
"No, dear, that is not the same," she said in low, comforting tones. He quivered at the caress. She put her arms round him reached up her face yearningly for a kiss. He forgot they were standing in the public footpath, in daylight, till she drew hastily away. She heard footsteps down the fog.
As they climbed the path the mist grew thinner, till it was only a grey haze at the top. There they were on the turfy lip of the land. The sky was fairly clear overhead. Below them the sea was singing hoa.r.s.ely to itself.
Helena drew him to the edge of the cliff. He crushed her hand, drawing slightly back. But it pleased her to feel the grip on her hand becoming unbearable. They stood right on the edge, to see the smooth cliff slope into the mist, under which the sea stirred noisily.
"Shall we walk over, then?" said Siegmund, glancing downwards. Helena"s heart stood still a moment at the idea, then beat heavily. How could he play with the idea of death, and the five great days in front? She was afraid of him just then.
"Come away, dear," she pleaded.
He would, then, forgo the few consummate days! It was bitterness to her to think so.
"Come away, dear!" she repeated, drawing him slowly to the path.
"You are not afraid?" he asked.
"Not afraid, no...." Her voice had that peculiar, reedy, harsh quality that made him shiver.
"It is too easy a way," he said satirically.
She did not take in his meaning.
"And five days of our own before us, Siegmund!" she scolded. "The mist is Lethe. It is enough for us if its spell lasts five days."
He laughed, and took her in his arms, kissing her very closely.
They walked on joyfully, locking behind them the doors of forgetfulness.
As the sun set, the fog dispersed a little. Breaking ma.s.ses of mist went flying from cliff to cliff, and far away beyond the cliffs the western sky stood dimmed with gold. The lovers wandered aimlessly over the golf-links to where green mounds and turfed banks suggested to Helena that she was tired, and would sit down. They faced the lighted chamber of the west, whence, behind the torn, dull-gold curtains of fog, the sun was departing with pomp.
Siegmund sat very still, watching the sunset. It was a splendid, flaming bridal chamber where he had come to Helena. He wondered how to express it; how other men had borne this same glory.
"What is the music of it?" he asked.
She glanced at him. His eyelids were half lowered, his mouth slightly open, as if in ironic rhapsody.
"Of what, dear?"
"What music do you think holds the best interpretation of sunset?"