ay a summer's afternoon had no place, however, in Jaffery's
category of delights. He must be up and doing. I have threatened on many
restless occasions to rig up at Northlands a gigantic wheel for his
benefit similar to that in which Susan's white mice take futile
exercise. If there was such a wheel he must, I am sure, get in and whirl
it round; just as if there is a boat he must row it, or tree to be
felled he must fell it, or a hill to be climbed he must climb it. At
Etretat, as it happens, there are two hills. He stretched forth his hand
to one, of course the highest, crowned by the fishermen's chapel and
ordained an ascent. Liosha was in the chastened mood in which she would
have dived with him to the depths of the English Channel. I, with
grudging meekness and a prayer for another five minutes devoted to the
deglutition of another liqueur brandy, acquiesced.

It was not such an arduous climb after all. A light breeze tempered the
fury of the July sun. The grass was crisp and agreeable to the feet. The
smell of wild thyme mingling with the salt of the low-tide seaweed
conveyed stimulating fragrance. When we reached the top and Jaffery
suggested that we should lie down, I protested. Why not walk along the
edge of the inspiring cliffs?

"It's all very well for you, who've slept like a log all night," said he
throwing his huge bulk on the ground, "but Liosha and I need rest."

Liosha stood glowing on the hilltop and panting a little after the quick
ascent. A little curly strand on her forehead played charmingly in the
wind which blew her skirts close around her in fine modelling. I thought
of the Winged Victory.

"I'm not a bit tired," she said.

But seeing Jaffery definitely prone with his bearded chin on his fists,
she glanced at me as though she should say: "Who are we to go contrary
to his desires?" and settled down beside him.

So I stretched myself, too, on the grass and we watched the dancing sea
and the flashing sails of fishing boats and the long plume from a
steamer in the offing and the little town beneath us and the tiny
golfers on the cliff on the other side of the bay, and were in fact
giving ourselves up to an idyllic afternoon, when suddenly Liosha broke
the spell.

"If I had got hold of that man this morning I think I would have killed
him."

Since leaving Havre we had not referred to unhappy things.

"It would have served him right," said Jaffery.

"I did strike him once."

"Oh?" said I.