“Breakfast is quite ready,” she said. “And I for breakfast—but shall I do?” She glanced at him. He was without a collar, so his throat was bare above the neck-band of his flannel shirt. Altogether she disapproved of his slovenly appearance. He was usually so smart in his dress. “I would not trouble,” she said almost sarcastically. Whistling, he threw the towel on a chair. “How did you sleep?” she asked gravely, as she watched him beginning to eat. “Like the dead—solid,” he replied”. “And you?” “Oh, pretty well, thanks,” she said, rather piqued that he had slept so deeply, whilst she had tossed, and had called his name in a torture of sleeplessness. “I haven’t slept like that for years,” he said enthusiastically. Helena smiled gently on him. The charm of his handsome, healthy zest came over her. She liked his naked throat and his shirt-breast, which suggested the breast of the man beneath it. She was extraordinarily happy, with him so bright. The dark-faced pansies, in a little crowd, seemed gaily winking a golden eye at her. After breakfast, while Siegmund dressed, she went down to the sea. She dwelled, as she passed, on all tiny, pretty things—on the barbaric yellow ragwort, and pink convolvuli; on all the twinkling of flowers, and dew, and snail-tracks drying in the sun. Her walk was one long lingering. More than the spaces, she loved the nooks, and fancy more than imagination. She wanted to see just as she pleased, without any of humanity’s previous vision for spectacles. So she knew hardly any flower’s name, nor perceived any of the relationships, nor cared a jot about an adaptation or a modification. It pleased her that the lowest browny florets of the clover hung down; she cared no more. She clothed everything in fancy. “That yellow flower hadn’t time to be brushed and combed by the fairies before dawn came. It is tousled …” so she thought to herself. The pink convolvuli were fairy horns or telephones from the day fairies to the night fairies. The rippling sunlight on the sea was the Rhine maidens spreading their bright hair to the sun. That was her favourite form of thinking. The value of all things was in the fancy they evoked. She did not care for people; they were vulgar, ugly, and stupid, as a rule. Her sense of satisfaction was complete as she leaned on the low sea-wall, spreading her fingers to warm on the stones, concocting magic out of the simple morning. She watched the indolent chasing of wavelets round the small rocks, the curling of the deep blue water round the water-shadowed reefs. “This is very good,” she said to herself. “This is eternally cool, and clean and fresh. It could never be spoiled by satiety.” She tried to wash herself with the white and blue morning, to clear away the soiling of the last night’s passion.