It was a mystery that greatly intrigued us. One morning the mystery was solved. A whiff of tobacco from an upper window came along with a puff of wind. It was a heated whiff, in spite of the cooling breeze. It was from a pipe, a short, black pipe, owned by some one in the Mansard window next door. There was the round disk of a dark-blue beret drooping over the pipe. "Good--" I said to myself--"I shall see now--at last--this maniac with a taste for darned petticoats!"
The pipe smoked peacefully, steadily on. The beret was motionless. Between the pipe and the cap was a man's profile; it was too much in shadow to be clearly defined.
The next instant the man's face was in full sunlight. The face turned toward me--with the quick instinct of knowing itself watched--and then--
"Been here a year--but you, when did you arrive? What luck! What luck!"
It was John Renard, the artist; after the first salutations question followed question.
"Judge for yourself--that is she--in the garden yonder."
The beret dipped itself perilously out into the sky--to take a full view.
It was as a trio that the conversation was continued later, in the garden. But Renard was still chief questioner.
"We'll go this afternoon--Have you been to Honfleur? Not yet?--We'll go to-morrow. The tide will be in to-day about four--I'll call for you--wear heavy boots and old clothes. It's jolly dirty. Where do you breakfast?"
The breakfast was eaten, as a trio, at our inn, an hour later. It was so warm a day, it was served under one of the arbors. Augustine was feeding and caressing the doves as we entered the inn garden. At sight of Renard she dropped a quiet courtesy, smiles and roses struggling for a supremacy on her round peasant face. She let the doves loose at once, saying: "Allez, allez," as if they quite understood that with Monsieur Renard's advent their hour of success was at an end.
Why does a man's presence always seem to communicate such surprising animation to a woman--to any woman? Why does his appearance, for instance, suddenly, miraculously stiffen the sauces, lure from the cellar bottles incrusted with the gray of thick cobwebs, give an added drop of the lemon to the mayonnaise, and make an omelette to swim in a sea of butter? All these added touches to our commonly admirable breakfast were conspicuous that day--it was a breakfast for a prince and a gourmet.