"Not to do things by halves," she continued, "I have determined to give you a treat to your taste. So here you have a lovely summer morning, woods and glades with all the proper light effects, birds warbling in the foliage, a mysterious bark gliding on the waves. As this is the sort of thing you like, you ought to be satisfied."
"Mademoiselle, I am charmed."
"Well, that's all right."
For the moment I was fairly contented with my fate. The air was sweet with the scent of the new-mown hay lying in swaths on either bank; the sombre avenues of the park, dotted with patches of sunshine, slipped past us, and from the flower-cups came the happy drone of myriads of insects feasting on the dew. Opposite me, old Alain smiled complacently at me with a protecting look at each stroke of his oars, and closer to me Mlle. Marguerite, dressed in white—contrary to her custom—beautiful and fresh and pure as a periwinkle blossom, shook with one hand the pearls of dew from her veil while she held out the other as a bait for Mervyn, who was swimming after the boat. I should not have wanted much persuasion to go to the end of the world in that little white boat.
As we passed under an arch in the wall that bounds the park the young Creole said to me:
"You do not ask where I am taking you?"
"No, mademoiselle, I do not. It is all the same to me."
"I am taking you into fairyland."
"I thought so, mademoiselle."
"Mlle. Hélouin, more versed in poetic lore than I am, has no doubt told you that the thickets that cover the country for twenty miles round are the remains of the ancient forest of Brouliande, the hunting-ground of those beings of Gaël, ancestors of your friend Mlle. de Porhoët, and the place where Mervyn's ancestor, wizard though he was, came under the magic spells of a damsel called Vivien. Now we shall soon be in the centre of that forest. And if this is not enough to fire your imagination, let me tell you that these woods are full of remains of the mysterious religion of the Celts; they are paved with them. In every shady nook you picture to yourself a white-robed Druid, and in every ray of sunlight the glitter of a golden sickle. The religion of these old bores has left near here, in a solitary and romantic place, a monument before which people subject to ecstasy are usually in raptures. I thought you would like to sketch it, and as it is not easy to find, I will show you the way, on condition that you suppress the explosions of an enthusiasm I cannot share."