“Fools—the fools, these women!” he said. “Either they smash their own crystal, or it revolts, turns opaque, and leaps out of their hands. Look at me, I am whittled down to the quick; but your neck is thick with compressed life; it is a stem so tense with life that it will hold up by itself. I am very sorry.”
All at once he stopped. The bitter despair in his tone was the voice of a heavy feeling of which Siegmund had been vaguely aware for some weeks. Siegmund felt a sense of doom. He laughed, trying to shake it off.
“I wish I didn’t go on like this,” said Hampson piteously. “I wish I could be normal. How hot it is already! You should wear a hat. It is really hot.” He pulled open his flannel shirt.
“I like the heat,” said Siegmund.
“So do I.”
Directly, the young man dashed the long hair on his forehead into some sort of order, bowed, and smiling in his gay fashion, walked leisurely to the village.
Siegmund stood awhile as if stunned. It seemed to him only a painful dream. Sighing deeply to relieve himself of the pain, he set off to find Helena.
XIV
In the garden of tall rose trees and nasturtiums Helena was again waiting. It was past nine o’clock, so she was growing impatient. To herself, however, she professed a great interest in a little book of verses she had bought in St Martin’s Lane for twopence.
A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings,
As through the glade, dim in the dark, she flew….