Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/166

Rh glittering sea. It was still only the daybreak, but the fisher-folk were astir, in different groups, spreading out their nets in the warmth of the rising sun, or putting out in their boats from the shore. There was glowing colour, picturesque movement, life, healthful, active, innocent, along the grey line of the sand; she sighed half impatiently as she watched it. Was it good to have no thought, save of a few fish?—no fear, save of the black swoop of the mistral?—no care in life, save for those striped sails, and those brown keels, and those sun-browned, half-naked children tumbling in the surf? No; she did not so belie herself as to cheat her thoughts into the lie; she would not have relinquished the power, the genius, the vitality, the knowledge of her life, for a thousand years of the supreme passionless calm that looks out from the eyes of Egyptian statues, far less for the dull brute routine of peasant ignorance and common joys.

On the sands Erceldoune waited, leaning against a ledge of rock, with his eyes fixed absently on the waters. Even at the distance he was from her she could see the profound weariness that had altered his bold and soldier-like bearing, the hopeless melancholy that darkened his face as the light of the