The water of the Gulf stretched out before her, gleaming with the
million lights of the sun. The voice of the sea is seductive, never
ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander
in abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there
was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating
the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the
water.
Edna had found her old bathing suit still hanging, faded, upon its
accustomed peg.
She put it on, leaving her clothing in the bath-house. But when she
was there beside the sea, absolutely alone, she cast the unpleasant,
pricking garments from her, and for the first time in her life she stood
naked in the open air, at the mercy of the sun, the breeze that beat
upon her, and the waves that invited her.
How strange and awful it seemed to stand naked under the sky! how
delicious! She felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a
familiar world that it had never known.
The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents
about her ankles. She walked out. The water was chill, but she walked
on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached
out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch of the sea is sensuous,
enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
She went on and on. She remembered the night she swam far out, and
recalled the terror that seized her at the fear of being unable to
regain the shore. She did not look back now, but went on and on,
thinking of the blue-grass meadow that she had traversed when a little
child, believing that it had no beginning and no end.
Her arms and legs were growing tired.
She thought of Leonce and the children. They were a part of her life.
But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and
soul. How Mademoiselle Reisz would have laughed, perhaps sneered, if she
knew! "And you call yourself an artist! What pretensions, Madame! The
artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies."
Exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her.
"Good-by--because I love you." He did not know; he did not understand.
He would never understand. Perhaps Doctor Mandelet would have understood
if she had seen him--but it was too late; the shore was far behind her,
and her strength was gone.
She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an
instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister
Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the
sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked
across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks
filled the air.