'What's a fellow to do when a blasted wind comes up smothering his picture in sand?'
Mildred could only laugh at him; and, while he packed up his canvases, paint-box, and easel, she thought about him. She thought that she understood him, and fancied that she would be able to manage him. And convinced of her power she said aloud, as they plunged into the forest:
'I always think it is a pity that it is considered vulgar to walk arm in arm. I like to take an arm…. I suppose we can do what we like in the forest of Fontainebleau. But you're too heavily laden—'
'No, not a bit. I should like it.'
She took his arm and walked by his side with a sweet caressing movement, and they talked eagerly until they reached the motive of his second picture.
'What I've got on the canvas isn't very much like the view in front of you, is it?'
'No, not much, I don't like it as well as the other picture.'
'I began it late one evening. I've never been able to get the same effect again. Now it looks like a Puvis de Chavannes—not my picture, but that hillside, that large space of blue sky and the wood-cutters.'
'It does a little. Are you going on with it?'
'Why?'