Beyond the beach the palms waved their fans and feathers around the hotel, which in the sunlight glittered white as the sand. The days followed one another in dazzling succession. Eleanor and Kester swam and hiked, or lay on the beach in their tremendous space of sand and sun and purple water, looking at each other, saying little or sometimes for hours on end saying nothing at all. The miracle of their being together was endless. Eleanor wondered if all the years of her life would be time enough for her to get used to it. It was her first acquaintance with tranquillity. She had been a busy, decisive person, wanting this and that and driving ahead to get it, bored with leisure, forever looking around for something to use up her tumultuous energy. But here she had drifted into quiet. Remembering the tension of the last months at home she wondered now if its cessation were not due less to her escape from Fred’s disapproval than to her present physical release. She smiled sometimes as she recalled how little she had really known of that, though she had thought herself so wise.
