d. Archie Davis was probably more surprised than ever before in
his life to learn that one of his loose efforts on canvas had so
impressed an American amateur of the arts that the latter had given Miss
Baxter a five-hundred-dollar check for him and an order for a seascape
from the Brittany shore. Behold Archie established at Pluydell in a
picturesque thatched cottage with his easel and paint-box! Pluydell is
on the road from Etretat to Fecamp, and not over ten minutes' ride in a
swift motor-car from the villa that Adelle occupied.

The young man painted intermittently during August, and Adelle
discovered a mad passion for driving her new runabout alone, which her
friends naturally voted quite "piggy" in her. If she was occasionally
bullied into taking a companion with her, she drove the car so
recklessly around the roughest country lanes that the friend never asked
for another chance to ride with her. And thus she was free many times to
make the dash over the familiar bit of chalk road, leave her car beneath
the yellow rose-vine that covered the cottage, and walk across the sand
to that particular corner of the wide beach where the young American had
established himself with umbrella and painting tools....

What did they do with themselves all the hours that Adelle contrived to
snatch for her Archie? First there was a good deal of kissing. Adelle
grew fonder of this emotional expression as she became accustomed to it,
and sometimes rather wearied Archie with her tenderness. Then there was
a good deal of affectionate fondling, rumpling his red hair, pulling his
clothes and tie into place, criticizing his appearance and health.
Adelle when she was at the doll age never had had a chance for these
things, and now all her woman's instincts began to bloom at once. She
wanted to dress and care for her treasure and deluged him with small
trinkets, many of them made by her own somewhat bungling hands. After
these more intimate desires had been gratified, Adelle might take a
critical look at the canvas over which Archie was dawdling and pronounce
it "pretty" or "odd," or ask what it was meant to be. Then throwing
herself down on the sand or turf and pulling her broad straw hat over
her face she prepared for "talk." "Talk" consisted mostly of question
and answer,--

"Where did you go last night?"

"Casino."

"Whom did you see at the casino?"

"Same crowd."

"Did you play?"

"Just a little."

"Did you win?"

"Yep!"