"Is that where he has taken the child?" I asked, hurriedly.
"No, Monsieur—Susette has gone home. It is only a little way."
I plunged on through the wet grass, my eyes on the opening through the trees, the rain pouring from my umbrella. Before I had reached the end of the path the rain ceased and the sun broke through, flooding the wet leaves with dazzling light.
These two, the clouds and the sun, were evidently bent on mischief, frightening little waves and painters and bright-eyed children and good priests who loved them!
A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS
II
Do you happen to know the Châlet Cycle?
If you are a staid old painter who takes life as he finds it, and who loves to watch the procession from the sidewalk without any desire to carry one of the banners or to blow one of the horns—one of your three-meals-a-day, no heel-taps, and go-to-bed-at-ten-o'clock kind of a man, then make a note of the Cycle. The melons are excellent; the omelets are wonders, and the salads something to be remembered. But, if you are two-and-twenty, with the world in a sling and both ends of the sling in your hand, and if this is your first real outing since your college days, it would be just as well for you to pass it by and take your coffee and rolls at the little restaurant over the bridge, or the one farther down the street.
Believe me, a most seductive place is this Châlet Cycle, with its tables set out under the trees!
A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles on tête-à-tête tables, and close-drawn curtains about the kiosks. A place, by day, where you lunch under giant red and white umbrellas, with seats for two, and these half-hidden by Japanese screens, so high that even the waiters cannot look over. A place with a great music-stand smothered in palms and shady walks and cosey seats, out of sight of anybody, and with deaf, dumb, and blind waiters. A place with a big open gateway where everybody can enter and—ah! there is where the danger lies—a little by-path all hedged about with lilac bushes, where anybody can escape to the woods by the river—an ever-present refuge in time of trouble and in constant use—more's the pity—for it is the unexpected that always happens at the Châlet Cycle.