'I wonder how it is you have such a fine natural perfume,' he said,
always in the same abstract, inquiring tone of happiness.
'Haven't all women?' she replied, and the peculiar penetrating twang of
a brass reed was again in her voice.
'I don't know,' he said, quite untouched. 'But you are scented like
nuts, new kernels of hazel-nuts, and a touch of opium....' He remained
abstractedly breathing her with his open mouth, quite absorbed in her.
'You are so strange,' she murmured tenderly, hardly able to control her
voice to speak.
'I believe,' he said slowly, 'I can see the stars moving through your
hair. No, keep still, _you_ can't see them.' Helena lay obediently very
still. 'I thought I could watch them travelling, crawling like gold
flies on the ceiling,' he continued in a slow sing-song. 'But now you
make your hair tremble, and the stars rush about.' Then, as a new
thought struck him: 'Have you noticed that you can't recognize the
constellations lying back like this. I can't see one. Where is the
north, even?' She laughed at the idea of his questioning her concerning these things.
She refused to learn the names of the stars or of the constellations, as
of the wayside plants. 'Why should I want to label them?' she would say.
'I prefer to look at them, not to hide them under a name.' So she
laughed when he asked her to find Vega or Arcturus.
'How full the sky is!' Siegmund dreamed on--'like a crowded street. Down
here it is vastly lonely in comparison. We've found a place far quieter
and more private than the stars, Helena. Isn't it fine to be up here,
with the sky for nearest neighbour?' 'I did well to ask you to come?' she inquired wistfully. He turned to
her.
'As wise as God for the minute,' he replied softly. 'I think a few
furtive angels brought us here--smuggled us in.' 'And you are glad?' she asked. He laughed.
'_Carpe diem_,' he said. 'We have plucked a beauty, my dear. With this
rose in my coat I dare go to hell or anywhere.' 'Why hell, Siegmund?' she asked in displeasure.
'I suppose it is the _postero_. In everything else I'm a failure,
Helena. But,' he laughed, 'this day of ours is a rose not many men
have plucked.' She kissed him passionately, beginning to cry in a quick, noiseless
fashion.
'What does it matter, Helena?' he murmured. 'What does it matter? We are
here yet.' The quiet tone of Siegmund moved her with a vivid passion of grief. She
felt she should lose him. Clasping him very closely, she burst into
uncontrollable sobbing. He did not understand, but he did not interrupt
her. He merely held her very close, while he looked through her shaking
hair at the motionless stars. He bent his head to hers, he sought her
face with his lips, heavy with pity. She grew a little quieter. He felt
his cheek all wet with her tears, and, between his cheek and hers, the
ravelled roughness of her wet hair that chafed and made his face burn.