Then, of course, she changed her mind.
"I think the gray is better for the morning; then I can wear the big
chip hat."
I fished up the gray. It was light, almost silvery, and had white spots
on it.
"Jack, dear," she said, coming out with her hair tucked up in a knot,
drawing the bath robe up to her chin with both hands, "I think that the
white cloth would be better, and that I can wear the béret."
By this time the trunk was in a pretty mess, which amused her; but at
last I ferreted out the white cloth dress, and, refusing to listen to
further discussion, sat down on the window seat. Sweetheart enjoyed it.
"Stop telling me to hurry," she said; "I can't, if you keep saying it
all the time."
After a while she called me to fasten her corsage, which hooked with
about ten hundred hooks along the side and collar. I hated to do it,
and my finger ends stung for hours after, but, as Sweetheart very
rightly says, "When we are rich enough to have a maid you needn't," I
submitted with an air which delighted her. Her tormenting "Thank you,
Jack," was the last straw, so I calmly picked her up and carried her
out, and almost to the dining room, where I set her down just in time
to avoid the proprietor and three domestics issuing from the office.
Sweetheart was half inclined to laugh, half indignant, and wholly
scandalized. But she did not dare say anything, for we were at the
dining-room door.
There were some people there, but except for a slight inclination we
did not notice each other. We had a small table to ourselves by the
rose-bowered window.
We were very hungry. Breakfast began with fresh sardines just caught,
and ended with little Breton cakes and a demi-tasse. I finished first;
I always do, because the wretched habit of bolting my food, contracted
while studying under Bouguereau at Julian's, clings to me yet. Oh,
I shall have a merry time paying for it when I am forty! I began, as
usual, to tease Sweetheart.
"If you continue to eat like this, dear, you will never be able to wear
your new frocks. This one seems a trifle too tight now."
Sweetheart, who prided herself as much on her figure as on her lovely
face, repelled the insult with disdain and nibbled her Breton biscuit
defiantly. When at last she condescended to rise, we strolled out
under the trees in front of the hotel, and sat down on the low stone
wall surrounding the garden. The noon sun hung in the zenith, flooding
the town with a dazzling downpour. Sunbeams glanced and danced on
the water; sunbeams filtered through the foliage; sunbeams stole
under Sweetheart's big straw hat, searching the depths of the gray
eyes. Sunbeams played merry mischief with my ears and neck, which
were beginning to sting in the first sunburn of the year. Through the
square the white-coiffed women passed and repassed; small urchins with
silver-buckled hatbands roamed about the bridge and market-place until
collected and trooped off to school by a black-robed Jesuit frère;
and in the shade of the trees a dozen sprawling men in Breton costume
smoked their microscopical pipes and watched the water.
"They are an industrious race," said I with fine irony, watching a
happy inebriate pursuing a serpentine course toward the café opposite.
Sweetheart, who was as patriotic a little girl as ever hummed the
Marseillaise, and adopted France as long as she lived in it, was up in
arms in an instant.
"I have read," she said with conviction, "that the Bretons are a brave,
industrious race. They are French."
"They speak a different language," I said--"not a word of French in it."
"They are French," repeated Sweetheart, with an inflection which
decided me to shun the subject until I could unpack my guide-book.
We sat a little while longer under the trees, until we both began
nodding and mutually accused each other. Then Sweetheart went up to
the room to take a nap, and I, scorning such weakness, lay down in a
steamer chair under our window and fell fast asleep in no time.
I was aroused by a big pink rose which hit me squarely on the mouth.
Sweetheart was perched in the window seat above, and as I looked up she
sent a shower of blossoms down upon me.
"Jack, you lazy creature, it's five o'clock, and I'm dressed and ready
for a walk!"
"So am I," I said, jumping up.
"But not like that. You must come up and make yourself nice for dinner."
"Nice? What's the matter with these tweeds? Aren't these new stockings
presentable?"
"Look at your hair!" she said evasively. "Come up this minute and brush
it."
I went, and was compelled to climb into a white collar and shirt, and
trousers of an English cut. But before we had gone far along the great
military road that climbed the heights above the little river, I took
Sweetheart's hand in mine and imparted to her my views and intentions
upon the subject of my costume for the future.
"You see, dearest, we are here in Brittany for three reasons. The
first is, that I should paint outdoors. The second is, that we should
economize like the deuce. The third is, our shadows----"
"I know," she interrupted faintly. "Never mind, Jack, dear."
We walked silently for a while, hand clasping hand very tightly, for we
were both thinking of the third reason.
I broke the silence first, speaking cheerfully, and she looked up with
a quick smile while the shadow fell from her brow.
"You see, dear, in this place, where we are going, there are no people
but peasants. Your frocks are all right for a place like this; we
must both wear our free-and-easy togs--I for painting, and you for
scrambling about after your wild flowers or fishing with me. If you get
tired of seeing me in corduroys or tweeds, I'll dress for you when you
think you can't stand it any longer."
"Oh, Jack, I do like your knickerbockers----"
"And you shall wear your most gorgeous gown for me----"
"Indeed I won't," she laughed, adding impulsively, "indeed I
will--every day, if you wish it!"
At the top of the hill stood an ancient Ursuline convent surrounded
by a high wall, which also inclosed the broad acres of the wealthy
sisterhood. We sat down by the roadside hedge and looked across the
valley, where the hurrying river had ceased to hasten and now lingered
in placid pools and long, deep reaches. The sun had set behind the
forest, and the sky threw a purple light over woods and meadow. The
grassy pools below were swept by flocks of whistling martins and
swallows. One or two white gulls flapped slowly toward the tide water
below, and a young curlew, speeding high overhead, uttered a lonesome
cry. The grass--the brilliant green grass of Brittany--had turned a
deep metallic blue in the twilight. A pale primrose light grew and died
in the sky, and the forest changed from rose to ashes. Then a dull red
bar shot across the parting clouds in the west, the forest smouldered
an instant, and the pools glowed crimson. Slowly the red bar melted
away, the light died out among the branches, the pools turned sombre.
Looking up, we saw the new moon flashing in the sky above our heads.
Sweetheart sighed in perfect contentment.
"It's beautiful!" I said, with another sigh.
"Ah, yes," she murmured, "beautiful to you, and to me--to me, Jack, who
have never before seen this land of Morbihan."
After a while she said, "And the ocean--oh, how I long to see it! Is it
near us, Jack?"
"The river runs into it twenty kilometres below. We feel the tide at
Quimperlé." I did not add, "Baedeker."
"I wonder," I said presently, "what are the feelings of a little
American who sees this country--the real country--for the first time?"
"I suppose you mean me," she said. "I don't know--I don't think I
understand it yet, but I know I shall love it, and never want to go
back."
"Perhaps we never shall," I said. "The magic second may stretch into
years that end at last as all ends."
Then our hands met in that sudden nervous clasp which seemed to help
and steady us when we were thinking of the real world, so long, so long
forgotten.