s sewing-machine was
sweeping the galleries with long, absent-minded strokes of the broom.
Edna sent her up into the house to awaken Robert.

"Tell him I am going to the Cheniere. The boat is ready; tell him to
hurry."

He had soon joined her. She had never sent for him before. She had never
asked for him. She had never seemed to want him before. She did not
appear conscious that she had done anything unusual in commanding
his presence. He was apparently equally unconscious of anything
extraordinary in the situation. But his face was suffused with a quiet
glow when he met her.

They went together back to the kitchen to drink coffee. There was no
time to wait for any nicety of service. They stood outside the window
and the cook passed them their coffee and a roll, which they drank and
ate from the window-sill. Edna said it tasted good.

She had not thought of coffee nor of anything. He told her he had often
noticed that she lacked forethought.

"Wasn't it enough to think of going to the Cheniere and waking you up?"
she laughed. "Do I have to think of everything?--as Leonce says when
he's in a bad humor. I don't blame him; he'd never be in a bad humor if
it weren't for me."

They took a short cut across the sands. At a distance they could see
the curious procession moving toward the wharf--the lovers, shoulder to
shoulder, creeping; the lady in black, gaining steadily upon them; old
Monsieur Farival, losing ground inch by inch, and a young barefooted
Spanish girl, with a red kerchief on her head and a basket on her arm,
bringing up the rear.

Robert knew the girl, and he talked to her a little in the boat. No one
present understood what they said. Her name was Mariequita. She had a
round, sly, piquant face and pretty black eyes. Her hands were small,
and she kept them folded over the handle of her basket. Her feet were
broad and coarse. She did not strive to hide them. Edna looked at her
feet, and noticed the sand and slime between her brown toes.

Beaudelet grumbled because Mariequita was there, taking up so much room.
In reality he was annoyed at having old Monsieur Farival, who considered
himself the better sailor of the two. But he would not quarrel with
so old a man as Monsieur Farival, so he quarreled with Mariequita. The
girl was deprecatory at one moment, appealing to Robert. She was saucy
the next, moving her head up and down, making "eyes" at Robert and
making "mouths" at Beaudelet.

The lovers were