Page 547 - sons-and-lovers

south. Clara stood shrinking slightly from the touch of the
wind, twisting her hair. The sea-grass rose behind the white
stripped woman. She glanced at the sea, then looked at him.
He was watching her with dark eyes which she loved and
could not understand. She hugged her breasts between her
arms, cringing, laughing:
‘Oo, it will be so cold!’ she said.
He bent forward and kissed her, held her suddenly close,
and kissed her again. She stood waiting. He looked into her
eyes, then away at the pale sands.
‘Go, then!’ he said quietly.
She flung her arms round his neck, drew him against her,
kissed him passionately, and went, saying:
‘But you’ll come in?’
‘In a minute.’
She went plodding heavily over the sand that was soft as
velvet. He, on the sandhills, watched the great pale coast
envelop her. She grew smaller, lost proportion, seemed only
like a large white bird toiling forward.
‘Not much more than a big white pebble on the beach,
not much more than a clot of foam being blown and rolled
over the sand,’ he said to himself.
She seemed to move very slowly across the vast sound-
ing shore. As he watched, he lost her. She was dazzled out
of sight by the sunshine. Again he saw her, the merest white
speck moving against the white, muttering sea-edge.
‘Look how little she is!’ he said to himself. ‘She’s lost like a
grain of sand in the beach—just a concentrated speck blown
along, a tiny white foam-bubble, almost nothing among the

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