With the first rays of the sun, the spell would
break, the waves would dance again, the gulls would soar and dip,
the crabs would scuttle across the shining sand, the round wet head
of a friendly seal would pop up here and there to say good-morning.
Then, Desire would swim--far out--so far that Spence, watching her,
would feel his heart contract. He could not follow her--yet. But he
never begged her not to take the risk, if risk there were. Why
should she lose one happy thrill in her own joyous strength because
he feared? Better that she should never come back from these long,
glorious swims than that he should have held her from them by so
much as a gesture.
And she always did come back, glowing, dripping, laughing, her head
as sleek as a young seal's, salt upon her lips and on her wave-
whipped cheek. Spence, whose swims were shorter and more sedate,
would usually have breakfast ready.
But upon this particular morning Desire loitered. Though the smell
of bacon was in the air, she sat pensively in the shallows of an
outgoing tide and flung shells at the crabs. She would have told you
that she was thinking. But had she used the word "feeling" she would
have been nearer the truth. And the thing which she obscurely felt
was that something had mysteriously altered for the worse in a world
which, of late, had shown remarkable promise. It was a small thing.
She hardly knew what it was. Merely a sense of dissonance somewhere.
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