The result of civilization then made him say: "May I take out that boat I saw in the little harbor after breakfast, Mrs.Howard?
I must have some real exercise.

Two days in a motor is too much." And his hostess graciously accorded him a permission, while her heart sank--at least she experienced that unpleasant physical sensation of heaviness somewhere in the diaphragm which poets have christened heart-sinking! She knew it was quite the right thing for him to have done,--and yet she wished fervently that they could have spent another hour like the one in the turret summer-house.
Henry was radiant--and as Michael went off through the postern and down to the little harbor where the boats lay, he asked in fine language what were his beloved's wishes for the afternoon?
Sabine felt pettish, she wanted to snap out that she did not care a single sou what they did, but she controlled herself and answered sweetly that she would take him all over the chateau and ask his opinion and advice about some further improvements she meant to make.
They strolled first to the crenellated wall of the courtyard along which there was a high walk from which you looked down upon the boat-house and the little jetty--this wall made the fourth side of the courtyard, and with the gate tower, and the concierge's tower across the causeway, and part of the garden elevation, was the very oldest of the whole chateau, and dated from early feudal times.
They leaned upon the stone and looked down at the sea.
"There are only a very few days in the year that Minne-ha-ha ever comes out of her shed," Sabine told him, pointing to the boat-house.

"You cannot imagine what the wind is here--even now it may get up in a few moments on this glassy sea, or thunder may come--and in the autumn the storms are too glorious.

I sit at one of the big windows in my sitting-room and watch the waves for hours; they break on the rocks which stretch out from the tower, which is my bedroom on the Finisterre side, and they rise mountain-high; it is a most splendid sight.

We are, as it were, in the midst of a cauldron of boiling foam.