Serge made no reply.  But as they went home, they took the path which Albine had pointed out, past the chestnuts and under the limes.  It was a path that love had consecrated.  And as they walked over the grass, they seemed to be seeking footmarks, or a fallen knot of ribbon, or a whiff of ancient perfume—­something that would clearly satisfy them that they were really travelling along the path that led to the joy of union.

‘Wait out here,’ said Albine, when they once more stood before the pavilion; ‘don’t come up for three minutes.’

Then she ran off merrily, and shut herself up in the room with the blue ceiling.  And when she had let Serge knock at the door twice, she softly set it ajar, and received him with an old-fashioned courtesy.

‘Good morrow, my dear lord,’ she said as she embraced him.

This amused them extremely.  They played at being lovers with childish glee.  In stammering accents they would have revived the passion which had once throbbed and died there.  But it was like a first effort at learning a lesson.  They knew not how to kiss each other’s lips, but sought each other’s cheeks, and ended by dancing around each other, with shrieks of laughter, from ignorance of any other way of showing the pleasure they experienced from their mutual love.

IX

The next morning Albine was anxious to start at sunrise upon the grand expedition which she had planned the night before.  She tapped her feet gleefully on the ground, and declared that they would not come back before nightfall.

‘Where are you going to take me?’ asked Serge.

‘You will see, you will see.’

But he caught her by the hands and looked her very earnestly in the face.  ’You must not be foolish, you know.  I won’t have you hunting for that glade of yours, or for the tree, or for the grassy couch where one droops and dies.  You know that it is forbidden.’

She blushed slightly, protesting that she had no such idea in her head.  Then she added:  ’But if we should come across them, just by chance, you know, and without really seeking them, you wouldn’t mind sitting down, would you?  Else you must love me very little.’

They set off, going straight through the parterre without stopping to watch the awakening of the flowers which were all dripping after their dewy bath.  The morning had a rosy hue, the smile of a beautiful child, just opening its eyes on its snowy pillow.

‘Where are you taking me?’ repeated Serge.

But Albine only laughed and would not answer.  Then, on reaching the stream which ran through the garden at the end of the flower-beds, she halted in great distress.  The water was swollen with the late rains.

‘We shall never be able to get across,’ she murmured.  ’I can generally manage it by taking off my shoes and stockings, but, to-day, the water would reach to our waists.’

They walked for a moment or two along the bank to find some fordable point; but the girl said it was hopeless; she knew the stream quite well.  Once there had been a bridge across, but it had fallen in, and had strewn the river bed with great blocks of stone, between which the water rushed along in foaming eddies.