He has adduced his necessary packings as an excuse for leaving them; though, indeed, they neither wished for nor asked any excuse; yet nothing is further from his intentions than to enter at once upon that occupation. She has walked to Biermandreis. In five minutes he is walking thither too. There are a couple of roads that lead there, and of course he takes the wrong one—the same, that is, that she had taken, so that, although he walks fast, yet, thanks to her start of him, he has reached the pretty little flower-shaded French village which, with its white church and its École Communale, looks as if it were taken to pieces at night and put to bed in a toy-box—he has reached it, and has, moreover, traced half his homeward way, before he overtakes her. The path by which he returns is a rough Arab track, cut in low steps up the hill, each step a mass of fossil-shells—whelk, and scallop and oyster shells, whose inhabitants died—strange thought!—before Adam saw Eden's fair light. It is a charming road, cut, in part, through the red rock, over which the southern greenery tumbles. He has approached quite close to her before she sees him. She is sitting on a camp-stool by the wayside, looking vacantly before her. Her figure is rather stooped, and her straight back bent, as if it were not worth the trouble to hold it up. Beside her, on the ground, lie a little tin colour-box and water-bottle and a drawing-board. He wishes, with a new pang, that he had not come upon her so suddenly. He is afraid that this is one of the aspects of her that will stick most pertinaciously in his memory. Catching sight of him, her whole sad, listless face lights up.
"It is you! I was sure you would come. I told them to tell you where I had gone. I meant to sketch"—with a glance at her neglected implements—"but"—with a sigh—"as you see, I did not."
"Are you down on your luck?" he asks, sitting down by her side; "you did not seem so"—trying to harden his heart by forcing a recollection of her extravagant gaiety—"a little while ago, when you were prancing after that jackass."
"Is not he a darling?" cries she, hurrying up the end of her sigh to make room for a smile of pleasure. "I want to buy him; only I am afraid he might die of sea-sickness going home."
"Perhaps"—scarcely knowing what he is saying.
"I should like to buy a little cart to harness him to—such a one as I saw just now going along the road, drawn by a tiny bourriquot that might have been twin brother to mine. Some Arab children had dressed out both him and his cart with branches of that great yellow fennel—his long ears and his little nose peeped out so pathetically between; another child walked after barefoot, waving a great acanthus-leaf. You never saw anything so pretty! Yes, you must break mine in for me," smiling again; "it will not take more than a week, I am sure."
"If it did not take more than a day even, I am afraid I should have to decline the appointment"—seizing this opening to blurt out his news. "I am off at six o'clock to-morrow morning. I—I want to see the Escurial."
She had been almost garrulous about the little donkey, and he had wished to stop her. In that he has undoubtedly succeeded.
How the asphodels cover the banks on either hand! They have come into full flower since last he passed this way: tall branching stem, white blossom, and pinky bud; here they are in thousands.
It is a soft day, on which scents lie heavy, and their strong odour—that is scarcely perfume, and yet has an odd, acrid charm—fills the air.