The creeper was tapping at the window, as a little wind blew up the
sunshine. Siegmund put out his hands for the unfolding happiness of the
morning. Helena was in the next room, which she kept inviolate. Sparrows
in the creeper were shaking shadows of leaves among the sunshine;
milk-white shallop of cloud stemmed bravely across the bright sky; the
sea would be blossoming with a dewy shimmer of sunshine.

Siegmund rose to look, and it was so. Also the houses, like white, and
red, and black cattle, were wandering down the bay, with a mist of
sunshine between him and them. He leaned with his hands on the
window-ledge looking out of the casement. The breeze ruffled his hair,
blew down the neck of his sleeping-jacket upon his chest. He laughed,
hastily threw on his clothes, and went out.

There was no sign of Helena. He strode along, singing to himself, and
spinning his towel rhythmically. A small path led him across a field and
down a zigzag in front of the cliffs. Some nooks, sheltered from the
wind, were warm with sunshine, scented of honeysuckle and of thyme. He
took a sprig of woodbine that was coloured of cream and butter. The
grass wetted his brown shoes and his flannel trousers. Again, a fresh
breeze put the scent of the sea in his uncovered hair. The cliff was a
tangle of flowers above and below, with poppies at the lip being blown
out like red flame, and scabious leaning inquisitively to look down, and
pink and white rest-harrow everywhere, very pretty.

Siegmund stood at a bend where heath blossomed in shaggy lilac, where
the sunshine but no wind came. He saw the blue bay curl away to the
far-off headland. A few birds, white and small, circled, dipped by the
thin foam-edge of the water; a few ships dimmed the sea with silent