Neither had any appetite. They sat and kept casting strange looks at one another.
To divert this anyhow, Hazel looked up at the roof, and said faintly, "If I had known, I would have made more haste, and set pearl there as well."
"What does that matter?" said Helen, looking down.
"Not much, indeed," replied he, sadly. "I am a fool to utter such childish regrets; and, more than that, I am a mean selfish cur to have a regret. Come, come, we can't eat; let us go round the Point and see the waves reddened by the beacon that gives you back to the world you were born to embellish."
Helen said she would go directly. And her languid reply contrasted strangely with his excitement. She played with her supper, and wasted time in a very unusual way, until he told her plump she was not really eating, and he could wait no longer, he must go and see how the beacon was burning.
"Oh, very well," said she; and they went down to the beach.
She took his crutch and gave it to him. This little thing cut him to the heart. It was the first time she had accompanied him so far as that without offering herself to be his crutch. He sighed deeply, as he put the crutch under his arm; but he was too proud to complain, only he laid it all on the approaching steamboat.
The subtle creature by his side heard the sigh, and smiled sadly at being misunderstood—but what man could understand her? They hardly spoke till they reached the Point. The waves glittered in the moonlight; there was no red light on the water.
"Why, what is this?" said Hazel. "You can't have lighted the bonfire in eight places, as I told you."
She folded her arms and stood before him in an attitude of defiance; all but her melting eye.