“Yes ... but not now. Let’s play at being happy first. Shall we go outdoors?”
“Yes.”
“And have our tea.... Felix, you will love the palm-trees! I’ll put on my prettiest frock—for you.”
LXIII. In Play
1
BY an unspoken agreement they postponed their discussion from hour to hour. They were too happy to want to question that happiness. For the moment all was well.
They were playing at being married; playing that everything was all right.... And the very fear which lurked in the back of their minds of that impending hour when they must reopen old wounds, heightened the beauty of the present moment.
They loitered on “the Palisades,” under palm-trees, in the hot sunshine, and drank in the cold breeze from the ocean—into whose waters, still winter-cold, only the seagulls dared to dive.
They walked, under the eaves of that low cliff-wall along the shore, among the few early holiday-makers, and the mothers who had brought their children down to play on the beach. They watched the children feeding the seagulls—throwing their remnants of sandwiches out into the water, for the friendly birds to swoop down and take; and the children would clap their hands and venture down closer to the water’s edge until some icy wave would sweep in and send them scampering barelegged back over the sand—a lovely game of children and birds and waves that one could watch for ever....