"_Rod_, then," continued Elliott, and started off in the wake of the two
girls, but was promptly collared by Rowden. "No, you don't! Fancy a man fishing with a float and sinker when he has a
fly rod in his hand! You come along!" Where the placid little Ept flows down between its thickets to the Seine,
a grassy bank shadows the haunt of the gudgeon, and on this bank sat
Colette and Jacqueline and chattered and laughed and watched the swerving
of the scarlet quills, while Hastings, his hat over his eyes, his head on
a bank of moss, listened to their soft voices and gallantly unhooked the
small and indignant gudgeon when a flash of a rod and a half-suppressed
scream announced a catch. The sunlight filtered through the leafy thickets
awaking to song the forest birds. Magpies in spotless black and white
flirted past, alighting near by with a hop and bound and twitch of the
tail. Blue and white jays with rosy breasts shrieked through the trees,
and a low-sailing hawk wheeled among the fields of ripening wheat, putting
to flight flocks of twittering hedge birds. Across the Seine a gull dropped on the water like a plume. The air was
pure and still. Scarcely a leaf moved. Sounds from a distant farm came
faintly, the shrill cock-crow and dull baying. Now and then a steam-tug
with big raking smoke-pipe, bearing the name "Guêpe 27," ploughed up the
river dragging its interminable train of barges, or a sailboat dropped
down with the current toward sleepy Rouen. A faint fresh odour of earth and water hung in the air, and through the
sunlight, orange-tipped butterflies danced above the marsh grass, soft
velvety butterflies flapped through the mossy woods. Hastings was thinking of Valentine. It was two o'clock when Elliott
strolled back, and frankly admitting that he had eluded Rowden, sat down
beside Colette and prepared to doze with satisfaction. "Where are your trout?" said Colette severely. "They still live," murmured Elliott, and went fast asleep. Rowden returned shortly after, and casting a scornful glance at the
slumbering one, displayed three crimson-flecked trout. "And that," smiled Hastings lazily, "that is the holy end to which the
faithful plod,--the slaughter of these small fish with a bit of silk and
feather." Rowden disdained to answer him. Colette caught another gudgeon and awoke
Elliott, who protested and gazed about for the lunch baskets, as Clifford
and Cécile came up demanding instant refreshment. Cécile's skirts were
soaked, and her gloves torn, but she was happy, and Clifford, dragging out
a two-pound trout, stood still to receive the applause of the company. "Where the deuce did you get that?" demanded Elliott. Cécile, wet and enthusiastic, recounted the battle, and then Clifford
eulogized her powers with the fly, and, in proof, produced from his creel
a defunct chub, which, he observed, just missed being a trout. They were all very happy at luncheon, and Hastings was voted "charming." He enjoyed it immensely,--only it seemed to him at moments that flirtation
went further in France than in Millbrook, Connecticut, and he thought that
Cécile might be a little less enthusiastic about Clifford, that perhaps it
would be quite as well if Jacqueline sat further away from Rowden, and
that possibly Colette could have, for a moment at least, taken her eyes
from Elliott's face. Still he enjoyed it--except when his thoughts drifted
to Valentine, and then he felt that he was very far away from her. La
Roche is at least an hour and a half from Paris. It is also true that he
felt a happiness, a quick heart-beat when, at eight o'clock that night the
train which bore them from La Roche rolled into the Gare St. Lazare and he
was once more in the city of Valentine. "Good-night," they said, pressing around him. "You must come with us next
time!" He promised, and watched them, two by two, drift into the darkening city,
and stood so long that, when again he raised his eyes, the vast Boulevard
was twinkling with gas-jets through which the electric lights stared like
moons. VI

It was with another quick heart-beat that he awoke next morning, for his
first thought was of Valentine. The sun already gilded the towers of Notre Dame, the clatter of workmen's
sabots awoke sharp echoes in the street below, and across the way a
blackbird in a pink almond tree was going into an ecstasy of trills. He determined to awake Clifford for a brisk walk in the country, hoping
later to beguile that gentleman into the American church for his soul's
sake. He found Alfred the gimlet-eyed washing the asphalt walk which led
to the studio. "Monsieur Elliott?" he replied to the perfunctory inquiry, "_je ne sais
pas_." "And Monsieur Clifford," began Hastings, somewhat astonished. "Monsieur Clifford," said the concierge with fine irony, "will be pleased
to see you, as he retired early; in fact he has just come in." Hastings hesitated while the concierge pronounced a fine eulogy on people
who never stayed out all night and then came battering at the lodge gate
during hours which even a gendarme held sacred to sleep. He also
discoursed eloquently upon the beauties of temperance, and took an
ostentatious draught from the fountain in the court. "I do not think I will come in," said Hastings. "Pardon, monsieur," growled the concierge, "perhaps it would be well to
see Monsieur Clifford. He possibly needs aid. Me he drives forth with
hair-brushes and boots. It is a mercy if he has not set fire to something
with his candle." Hastings hesitated for an instant, but swallowing his dislike of such a
mission, walked slowly through the ivy-covered alley and across the inner
garden to the studio. He knocked. Perfect silence. Then he knocked again,
and this time something struck the door from within with a crash. "That," said the concierge, "was a boot." He fitted his duplicate key into
the lock and ushered Hastings in. Clifford, in disordered evening dress,
sat on the rug in the middle of the room. He held in his hand a shoe, and
did not appear astonished to see Hastings. "Good-morning, do you use Pears' soap?" he inquired with a vague wave of
his hand and a vaguer smile. Hastings' heart sank. "For Heaven's sake," he said, "Clifford, go to bed." "Not while that--that Alfred pokes his shaggy head in here an' I have a
shoe left." Hastings blew out the candle, picked up Clifford's hat and cane, and said,
with an emotion he could not conceal, "This is terrible,
Clifford,--I--never knew you did this sort of thing." "Well, I do," said Clifford. "Where is Elliott?" "Ole chap," returned Clifford, becoming maudlin, "Providence which
feeds--feeds--er--sparrows an' that sort of thing watcheth over the
intemperate wanderer--"

"Where is Elliott?" But Clifford only wagged his head and waved his arm about. "He's out
there,--somewhere about." Then suddenly feeling a desire to see his
missing chum, lifted up his voice and howled for him. Hastings, thoroughly shocked, sat down on the lounge without a word.