dark abyss of time with brooding eyes, and
now and then with a long meditative glance at Lawson she sighed deeply.

Then came the summer, and restlessness seized these young people. The blue
skies lured them to the sea, and the pleasant breeze sighing through the
leaves of the plane-trees on the boulevard drew them towards the country.
Everyone made plans for leaving Paris; they discussed what was the most
suitable size for the canvases they meant to take; they laid in stores of
panels for sketching; they argued about the merits of various places in
Brittany. Flanagan and Potter went to Concarneau; Mrs. Otter and her
mother, with a natural instinct for the obvious, went to Pont-Aven; Philip
and Lawson made up their minds to go to the forest of Fontainebleau, and
Miss Chalice knew of a very good hotel at Moret where there was lots of
stuff to paint; it was near Paris, and neither Philip nor Lawson was
indifferent to the railway fare. Ruth Chalice would be there, and Lawson
had an idea for a portrait of her in the open air. Just then the Salon was
full of portraits of people in gardens, in sunlight, with blinking eyes
and green reflections of sunlit leaves on their faces. They asked Clutton
to go with them, but he preferred spending the summer by himself. He had
just discovered Cezanne, and was eager to go to Provence; he wanted heavy
skies from which the hot blue seemed to drip like beads of sweat, and
broad white dusty roads, and pale roofs out of which the sun had burnt the
colour, and olive trees gray with heat.

The day before they were to start, after the morning class, Philip,
putting his things together, spoke to Fanny Price.

"I'm off tomorrow," he said cheerfully.

"Off where?" she said quickly. "You're not going away?" Her face fell.

"I'm going away for the summer. Aren't you?"

"No, I'm staying in Paris. I thought you were going to stay too. I was
looking forward...."

She stopped and shrugged her shoulders.

"But won't it be frightfully hot here? It's awfully bad for you."

"Much you care if it's bad for me. Where are you going?"

"Moret."

"Chalice is going there. You're not going with her?"

"Lawson and I are going. And she's going there too. I don't know that
we're actually going together."

She gave a low guttural sound, and her large face grew dark and red.

"How filthy! I thought you were a decent fellow. You were about the only
one here. She's been with Clutton and Potter and Flanagan