That day, three weeks before the end of the season, when Vera had so
insulted Helena, the latter had said, as she put on her coat, looking at
him all the while with heavy blue eyes: 'I think, Siegmund, I cannot
come here any more. Your home is not open to me any longer.' He had
writhed in confusion and humiliation. As she pressed his hand, closely
and for a long time, she said: 'I will write to you.' Then she left him.
Siegmund had hated his life that day. Soon she wrote. A week later, when
he lay resting his head on her lap in Richmond Park, she said: 'You are so tired, Siegmund.' She stroked his face, and kissed him
softly. Siegmund lay in the molten daze of love. But Helena was, if it
is not to debase the word, virtuous: an inconsistent virtue, cruel and
ugly for Siegmund.
'You are so tired, dear. You must come away with me and rest, the first
week in August.' His blood had leapt, and whatever objections he raised, such as having
no money, he allowed to be overridden. He was going to Helena, to the
Isle of Wight, tomorrow.
Helena, with her blue eyes so full of storm, like the sea, but, also
like the sea, so eternally self-sufficient, solitary; with her thick
white throat, the strongest and most wonderful thing on earth, and her
small hands, silken and light as wind-flowers, would be his tomorrow,
along with the sea and the downs. He clung to the exquisite flame which
flooded him....
But it died out, and he thought of the return to London, to Beatrice,
and the children. How would it be? Beatrice, with her furious dark eyes,
and her black hair loosely knotted back, came to his mind as she had
been the previous day, flaring with temper when he said to her: 'I shall be going away tomorrow for a few days' holiday.' She asked for detail, some of which he gave. Then, dissatisfied and
inflamed, she broke forth in her suspicion and her abuse, and her
contempt, while two large-eyed children stood listening by. Siegmund
hated his wife for drawing on him the grave, cold looks of condemnation
from his children.
Something he had said touched Beatrice. She came of good family, had
been brought up like a lady, educated in a convent school in France. He
evoked her old pride. She drew herself up with dignity, and called the
children away. He wondered if he could bear a repetition of that
degradation. It bled him of his courage and self-respect.