Barry's hand gripped Nan's. He was here then, and it had come. Her head swam; she felt light, like thistledown on the wind.
They came up from the station into quiet, gay, warm Penzance, and had tea at a shop. They were going to stay at Marazion that night and the next, and spend the day bicycling to Land's End and back. They were all four full of vigour, brimming with life and energy that needed to be spent. But Gerda looked pale.
"She's been over-working in a stuffy office," Barry said. "And not, except when she dined with me, getting proper meals. What do you think she weighs, Nan?"
"About as much as that infant there," Nan said, indicating a stout person of five at the next table.
"Just about, I daresay. She's only six stone. What are we to do about it?"
His eyes caressed Gerda, as they might have caressed a child. He would be a delightful uncle by marriage, Nan thought.
They took the road to Marazion. The tide was going out. In front of them the Mount rose in a shallowing violet sea.
"My word!" said Barry, and Kay, screwing up his eyes, murmured, "Good old Mount." Gerda's lips parted in a deep breath; beauty always struck her dumb.
Into the pale-washed, straggling old village they rode, stabled their bicycles, and went down to the shining evening sands, where now the paved causeway to the Mount was all exposed, running slimy and seaweedy between rippled wet sands and dark, slippery rocks. Bare-footed they trod it, Gerda and Kay in front, Barry and Nan behind, and the gulls talking and wheeling round them.
Nan stopped, the west in her eyes. "Look."