white wall of the overhanging cliff.

"That is fine!" exclaimed Mme. Rosemilly, standing still. Jean had
come up with her, and with a beating heart offered his hand to help
her down the narrow steps cut in the rock.

They went on in front, while Beausire, squaring himself on his little
legs, gave his arm to Mme. Roland, who felt giddy at the gulf before
her.

The two young people who led the way, went fast till on a sudden they
saw, by the side of a wooden bench which afforded a resting place
about half-way down the slope, a thread of clear water, springing from
a crevice in the cliff. It fell into a hollow as large as a washing
basin which it had worn in the stone; then, falling in a cascade,
hardly two feet high, it trickled across the footpath, which it had
carpeted with cresses, and was lost among the briars and grass on the
raised shelf where the boulders were piled.

"Oh, I am so thirsty!" cried Mme. Rosemilly.

But how could she drink? She tried to catch the water in her hand, but
it slipped away between her fingers. Jean had an idea; he placed a
stone on the path and on this she knelt down to put her lips to the
spring itself, which was thus on the same level.

When she raised her head, covered with myriads of tiny drops,
sprinkled all over her face, her hair, her eyelashes, and her dress,
Jean bent over her and murmured: "How pretty you look!"

She answered in the tone in which she might have scolded a child:

"Will you be quiet!"

These were the first words of flirtation they had ever exchanged.

"Come," said Jean, much agitated. "Let us go on before they come up
with us."

For in fact they could see quite near them now, Captain Beausire's
back as he came down, stern foremost, so as to give both hands to Mme.
Roland; and further up, further off, Roland still letting himself
slip, lowering himself on his hams and clinging on with both his hand
and elbows at the speed of a tortoise, Pierre keeping in front of him
to watch his movements.

The path, now less steep, was here almost a road, zigzagging between
the huge rocks which had at some former time rolled from the hilltop.
Mme. Rosemilly and Jean set off at a run and they were soon on the
beach. They crossed it and reached the rocks, which stretched in a
long and flat expanse covered with seaweed, and broken by endless
gleaming pools. The ebbed waters lay beyond, very far away, across
this plain of slimy weed, of a black and shining olive-green.