"How very beautiful it is," murmured Albert at last. "You love the sea, do you not, Mlle. Esperance?"
"More than anything else in nature. I love great plains too, but I like them best because they are like the sea when they billow under the breeze."
"You don't like the mountains at all?" asked Genevieve.
"Oh! no, I stifle there. I dream at night that they are pressing in to strangle me. I went to Cauterets with mama after she had bronchitis. I spent all my time climbing to get a view of a horizon and breathe better. As soon as mama was well the Doctor sent us away saying that it was not good for me."
"And the forest?" asked Albert.
"The forest hides the sky too much. Nothing makes me as sad as the deep woods."
"And the lakes, cousin, what do you say of them?"
"A lake makes me shiver. I feel constrained before a lake as before a person whom I know to be false and perfidious. Of course, the sea is dangerous, but no one is ignorant of its caprices, its violence, its tragic love bouts with the wind. The sea is open, whether in laughter or fury. See, look off there," she said, standing upon the rock. "This evening it is calm as a lake, and still the waves are all rippling, preparing for an assault on this rock! It is so immensely alive, even in its great reserve!"
The silhouette of the young girl, cut against the horizon, was blurred by the passing night mist. She seemed a flower blooming by moon-light. Maurice said in a low tone to Genevieve, "See if you can realize this picture. It is beyond the power of any painter."
"One of the aboriginals might have succeeded. He would not have been guided by any of the conventions that are introduced in all the arts and bar the way to the realism of the ideal, which is dear to all true artists."