The Trespasser

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.