Alec was not with us. The Kings, Queens and Knaves of the bridge-table were pictures enough for him. So I accompanied Madge and Jennie. Jennie's bosom lifted as we approached the wide spaces of the links--but then the St Briac air is admittedly fresher than the tepid medium that is canalised, so to speak, in the streets and lanes of Dinard. It was afternoon, and the shed at the terminus was a bustle of moving luggage, friends meeting friends, parties going into Dinard to return by the seven o'clock tram. We crossed the road to his glass-fronted hotel. There was no need to ask for him. Evidently he had been watching from his window. He stood at the gate, once more in blouse and corduroys.
"Tea first, I think, and the works of art afterwards," he greeted us cheerfully. "Where's Mr Aird? Oh, what a pity! This way--straight through the kitchen--I thought it would be nicer outside----"
He led the way through the black and cavernous kitchen towards the sunny green doorway and the back garden.
Tea was set under an apple tree. The garden was some fifteen yards square, but only close under the tree was there room for the table and the four chairs. Even then we had to be careful how we moved, lest we should crush a growing plant. There were no paths--you could hardly call those single-file, six-inches-wide threads paths. Unless you put one foot fairly in line with the other pop went a radish, a strawberry, a flower. Not one single hand's-breadth anywhere was uncultivated. Behind Madge as she sat a row of scarlet runners made a bright straggle of coral, and dwarf beans filled the interstices. Over the runners tall nodding onion-heads showed, and behind them again bushes heavy with white currant. Along a knee-high latticed fence huge red-coated apples were espaliered, and the ochre flowers of a marrow sprawled over a manure-heap. Bees droned and butterflies flitted in the sun, glints of glass cloches pierced the screens of warm grey-green. And, where a tree of yellow genet covered half the wall, a large green and red parrot in a cage had suddenly become silent on hearing voices.
"That's Coco," Derry said. "Coco! Ck!--'Quand je bois mon vin clairet----'"
The parrot cocked his head on one side and regarded us with an upside-down eye.