heir little tip carts through the lanes, or singing beside
their thatched cottages.

From her first exploratory walks with her husband Milly returned quite
ravished by the quality of the place, its beauty of colored sea and
peaceful country, and the little gray houses sheltered by large trees.
Here she dreamed, in this fragrant salty air, they would have an
enchanting summer withdrawn from the world, and great deeds would be
done by her husband. "I could almost paint myself here," she said to
him, "it all looks so quaint and lovely." Jack liked the place, and
quickly set up his easel under the trees down by the stone pier where
the fishing-boats landed and where there was always a noisy, lively
scene. Milly idled near by in the sand with the baby. But the work did
not go fast. She thought that Jack must be fagged after the long winter
indoors, and urged him to rest for a while. They took to walking through
the lanes and along the beaches. They found little to say to each other;
sometimes she thought that she bored him and he would rather be alone.
They were suffering, naturally, from the too great intimacy of the past
two years. Neither had a spontaneous thought to offer the other,--no
reaction to arouse surprise and discussion. Milly could not comprehend
her husband's restless depression, his wish to be at something which he
could not formulate to himself clearly enough to do. She decided that he
was developing nerves and recommended bathing in the sea. When he took
to painting again, she would wander along the beach by herself and watch
the boys fishing for _ecrevisses_ in the salt pools among the rocks, or
lay prone on the sand gazing at the colored sails on the dark sea. In
spite of all the peace and the beauty about her she was lonely, and
asked herself sometimes if this was what it meant to be an artist's
wife. Was this all? Was life to be like this for years and years?...

Their hotel was a rambling low building surrounded by high walls, with a
high terrace behind, from which there was a glimpse of the sea and which
was well shaded by branching plane trees. Here on calm summer nights the
dinner table was spread for the _pensionnaires_, who gradually arrived.
There were a few French, of a nondescript sort, a fat American from
Honolulu, who had been rolling about Europe since the Spanish War, in
which he had had some part. Then there was a Russian lady with two
children and a Finnish maid. She was already there whe