consideration. He had to get a sense of the anemone and a sympathetic
knowledge of its experience, into his blood, before he was satisfied. To
Helena an anemone was one more fantastic pretty figure in her
kaleidoscope.

So she sat dabbling her pink feet in the water, quite unconscious of his
gravity. He waited on her, since he never could capture her.

'Come,' he said very gently. 'You are only six years old today.'

She laughed as she let him take her. Then she nestled up to him, smiling
in a brilliant, child-like fashion. He kissed her with all the father in
him sadly alive.

'Now put your stockings on,' he said.

'But my feet are wet.' She laughed.

He kneeled down and dried her feet on his handkerchief while she sat
tossing his hair with her finger-tips. The sunlight grew more and
more golden.

'I envy the savages their free feet,' she said.

'There is no broken glass in the wilderness--or there used not to be,'
he replied.

As they were crossing the sands, a whole family entered by the cliff
track. They descended in single file, unequally, like the theatre; two
boys, then a little girl, the father, another girl, then the mother.