They checked their horses. Valentine drew a long breath before the pulsating wonder of it, the freedom and the joy. She stretched out her hand in silence to her husband, and he took it as simply; so they sat on their horses hand in hand like two children at their first sight of the ocean.
Then he suggested their going down to the shore, and they went down among the shelving dunes, their horses’ hoofs sinking deep in the loose blown sand. At the verge were the stem and ribs of an abandoned boat, conveniently embedded there, to which they could tether their horses, and Gaston, dismounting, did so and held out his arms to her. But Zéphyr whinnied after them; sand and rotting timbers pleased him not.
Down here, on the shore itself, the sandhills gave some shelter, and they could walk in comfort, especially when they went nearer to the water where the sand was firm and ribbed. Despite the offshore wind, the curling waves shook off from their edges a breeze of their own, the essence of the sea. Clinging to her husband’s arm, Valentine leant her head against his shoulder and half closed her eyes.
“Here,” he said softly, looking down at her, “here one forgets wars and anxieties, the past and the future—everything but the present. We were right to come.”
The breeze of the sea’s own seemed to freshen. Down here one could not see in the same way as from the verge above the whole extent of that moving field of rapture, all the rainbow thoughts that ran over its surface, but one was nearer to its incommunicable magic.
“You will be cold, my darling. Let us walk along by the waves.”
The little seas, tumbling in foam at their feet, bending in mock homage before them, racing slily to entrap them, laughed their undying laugh whose meaning the heart of man is not deep enough to seize. Starfish, fluted shells, trails of seaweed, all their careless treasures were displayed there. . . . They would laugh with just the same fresh joy to-morrow . . . when Gaston would be here no longer . . . O, terrible, that eternal youth and indifference!
“Gaston,” she said, gripping his arm more closely, “you are not going alone to La Jonchère, surely? You spoke of sending the young men back.”
“No, my heart,” said he, putting his hand over hers. “I am not going alone. M. du Ménars and another officer will meet me to-morrow on the road, with an escort as well. When we meet I shall send my aides-de-camp back to the Clos-aux-Grives. That was all I meant.”
A few paces more, and he added, “Unless I take one of them with me to La Jonchère in order to use him as a messenger to you. Which of them, in that case, would you rather have as Mercury?”