"Oh, dear no," said the boy, "we sail three times round the duckpond and come home for tea."

Helen hung her head. The boy put his hand up to his mouth and watched her over it.

"Well," he said presently, "I must get along to Pagham." He stuck the little sheaf of wheat through the hole in his cap, and it bobbed like a ruddy-gold plume over his ear. Then he felt in his pocket and after some fumbling got hold of what he wanted and pulled it out. "Here you are, child," he said, "and thank you again."

He put his present into her hand and swung off whistling. He turned once to wave to her, and the corn in his cap nodded with its weight and his light gait. She stood gazing till he was out of sight, and then she looked at what he had given her. It was a sh.e.l.l.

She had heard of sh.e.l.ls, of course, but she had never seen one. Yet she knew this was no English sh.e.l.l. It was as large as the top of a teacup, but more oval than round. Over its surface, like pearl, rippled waves of sea-green and sea-blue, under a l.u.s.ter that was like golden moonlight on the ocean. She could not define or trace the waves of color; they flowed in and out of each other with interchangeable movement. One half of the outer rim, which was transparently thin and curled like the fantastic edge of a surf wave, was flecked with a faint play of rose and cream and silver, that melted imperceptibly into the moonlit sea. When she turned the sh.e.l.l over she found that she could not see its heart. The blue-green side of the sh.e.l.l curled under like a smooth billow, and then broke into a world of caves, and caves within caves, whose final secret she could not discover. But within and within the color grew deeper and deeper, bottomless blues and unfathomable greens, shot with such gleams of light as made her heart throb, for they were like the gleams that shoot through our dreams, the light that just eludes us when we wake.

She went into the mill, trembling from head to foot. She was not conscious of moving, but she found herself presently standing by the grinding stones, with sound rushing through her and white dust whirling round her. She gazed and gazed into the labyrinth of the sh.e.l.l as though she must see to its very core; but she could not. So she unfastened her blue gown and laid the sh.e.l.l against her young heart. It was for the first time of so many times that I know not whether when, twenty years later, she did it for the last time, they outnumbered the silver hairs among her black ones. And the silver by then were uncountable. Yet on the day when Helen began her twenty years of lonely listening--

(But having said this, Martin Pippin grasped the rope just above Jennifer's hand, and pulled it with such force that the swing, instead of swinging back and forth, as a swing should, reeled sideways so that the swinger had much ado to keep her seat.

Jennifer: Heaven help me!

Martin: Heaven help ME! I need its help more sorely than you do.

Jennifer: Oh, you should be punished, not helped!

Martin: I have been punished, and the punished require help more than censure, or scorn, or anger, or any other form of righteousness.

Jennifer: Who has punished you? And for what?

Martin: You, Mistress Jennifer. For my bad story.

Jennifer: I do not remember doing so. The story is only begun. I am sure it will be a very good story.

Martin: Now you are compa.s.sionate, because I need comfort. But the truth is that, good or bad, you care no more for my story. For I saw a tear of vexation come into your eye.

Jennifer: It was not vexation. Not exactly vexation. And doubtless Helen will have experiences which we shall all be glad to hear. But all the same I wish--

Martin: You wish?

Jennifer: That she was not going to grow old in her loneliness. Because all lovers are young.

Martin: You have spoken the most beautiful of all truths. Does the gra.s.s grow high enough by the swing for you to pluck me two blades?

Jennifer: I think so. Yes. What do you want with them?

Martin: I want but one of them now. You shall only give me the other if, at the end of my tale, you agree that its lovers are as green as this blade and that.)

On the day (resumed Martin) when Helen began her lonely listening of heart and ears betwixt the seash.e.l.l and the millstones of her dreams, there was not, dear Mistress Jennifer, a silver thread in her black locks to vex you with. For a girl of seventeen is but a child. Yet old enough to begin spinning the stuff of the spirit...

"My boy!--

"Oh, how strange it was, your coming like that, so suddenly. Before I opened the door I stood there guessing...And how could I have guessed this? Did you guess too on the other side?"

"No, not much. I thought it might be a cross old woman. What did YOU guess?"

"Oh, such stupid things. Kings and knights and even women. And it was you!"

"And it was you!"

"Suppose I'd been a cross old woman?"

"Suppose I'd been a king?"

"And you were just my boy."

"And you--my sulky girl."

"Oh, I wasn't sulky. Oh, didn't you understand? How could I speak to you? I couldn't hear you, I couldn't see you, even!"

"Can you see me now?"

She was lying with her cheek against his heart, and she turned her face suddenly inwards, because she saw him bend his head, and the sweetness of his first kiss was going to be more than she could bear.

"Why don't you look up, you silly child? Why don't you look at me, dear?"

"How can I yet? Can I ever? It's so hard looking in a person's eyes.

But I am looking at you, I AM, though you can't see me."

"Then tell me what color my eyes are."

"They're gray-green, and your hair is dark red, a sort of chestnut but a little redder and rough over your forehead, and your nose is all over freckles with very very snub--"

(Martin: Heaven help you, Mistress Jennifer!

Jennifer: W-w-w-w-why, Master Pippin?

Martin: Were you not about to fall again?

Jennifer: N-n-n-n-no. I-I-I-I-I--

Martin: I see you are as firm as a rock. How could I have been so deceived?)

He shook her a little in his arms, saying: "How rude you are to my nose. I wish you'd look up."

"No, not yet...presently. But you, did you look at me?"

"Didn't you see me look?"

"When?"