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.
She looked at him with grave blue eyes and accepted his gift. Evidently she was not going to say anything.
“The sea brought it all the way from the mainland without breaking it,” said Helena, with the interesting intonation some folk use to children.
The girl looked at her.
“The waves put it out of their lap on to some seaweed with such careful fingers—”
The child’s eyes brightened.
“The tide-line is full of treasures,” said Helena, smiling.
The child answered her smile a little.
Siegmund had walked away.