"If you give me your hand."
They walked a little way in the shadow of the fir-trees, leaving the hospital on their right. The plantation was almost deserted. The soldiers were evidently retiring, for the clarions sounded more distant now. Here and there the figure of an Arab was visible sauntering slowly among the trees, with the smoke of his cigarette dispersing above him. Some young Jews went by, holding hands, laughing and talking. They sent glances of hard inquiry at Mrs. Shiffney's broad figure from their too intelligent eyes. Soon their thin forms vanished among the gray trunks.
"Shall we sit there?" asked Claude.
"Yes; just in the sun."
"Oh, but you wanted—"
"No, let us sit in the sun."
She opened her green parasol.
Almost at the edge of the cliff, which descended steeply to the high road to Philippeville, was a flat ledge of rock warmed by the sunbeams.
"It's perfect here," she said, sitting down. "And what a view!"
They were exactly opposite to the terrific Grand Rocher, a gray and pale yellow precipice, with the cascades and the Grand Moulin at its foot, the last houses of the city perched upon its summit in the sky.