t which both men turned
their heads. Her father, incorrigible, was at it again; and, once
started, there was no stopping him. Poor Father Anton! For the rest
of the way he would listen to art!

"Did I not tell you to beware, Father Anton?" she cried out in comical
despair--and waved them to go on again.

She had no desire to listen to art, its relation to nature, its
relation to science, its relation to civilisation, nor, above all, to a
dissertation on the modern school. She had heard it all before; and,
if it had not passed as quickly through one ear as it had come into the
other, her head, she was quite sure, would have driven her to
distraction. Besides, it was much more important to think about
something else--no, not what she had been thinking about a moment ago;
but, for instance, to be practical, about this menage whose wheels,
without knowing whether they were oiled or not, she had impulsively set
in motion. Would the cottage be at all habitable? Would this
Marie-Louise be at all suitable? Would Marie-Louise and Nanette get
along together? Nanette was insanely jealous of Jules--nothing but the
fact that Jules was with them would have induced Nanette, to whom Paris
was the beginning and the end of all things, to have come on such a
trip. Yes, there was a very great deal to think about--now that it
occurred to her! Myrna fell into a brown study, quite oblivious to her
surroundings.

When she joined her father and the cure again, they had stopped at the
edge of the little wood on the headland, and a cottage, almost as
prettily vine-covered as Father Anton's, lay before them.

"Well, Myrna," her father called, with a smile, "I must say your plunge
in the dark looks propitious so far."

"No, no! Not a plunge in the dark!" protested Father Anton quickly,
his eyes full of expectant pleasure on Myrna. "That is not fair,
Monsieur Bliss! It was on my recommendation, was it not, mademoiselle?
And now--eh?--what does mademoiselle think of it?"

It was like the imaginative conception of some painter. The cottage,
green with climbing vines, spotlessly white where the vines were
sparse, nestled in the trees--in front, as far as the eye could reach,
the glorious, deep, unfathomable blue of the Mediterranean; nearer, the
splash of surf, like myriad fountains, on the headland's rugged point;
while a tiny fringe of beach, just peeping from under the edge of the
cliff at the far side of the cottage, glistened