She spoke so quietly and bravely that we had not the heart to touch upon the sentimental side of her adventure.  As we could not stay in Havre all day at the risk of meeting Mr. Ras Fendihook, who might swagger into the town from his swagger hotel on the plage, we carried out Jaffery’s proposal, hired an automobile and drove to Etretat.  We came straight from inland into the tiny place, so coquettish in its mingling of fisher-folk and fashion, so cut off from the coast world by the jagged needle gates jutting out on each side of the small bay and by the sudden grass-grown bluff rising above them, so cleanly sparkling in the sunshine, and for the first time Liosha’s face brightened.  She drew a deep breath.

“Oh, let us all come and live here.”

We laughed and wandered among the tarred, up-turned boats wherein the fishermen store their tackle and along the pebbly beach where a few belated bathers bobbed about in the water and up the curious steps to the terrace and listened to the last number of the orchestra.  Then lunch at the clean, old-fashioned Hotel Blanquet among the fishing boats; and afterwards coffee and liqueurs in the little shady courtyard.  Jaffery was very gentle with Liosha, treating her tenderly like a bruised thing, and talked of his adventures and cracked little jokes and attended solicitously to her wants.  Several times I saw her raise her eyes in shy gratitude, and now and then she laughed.  Her healthy youth also enabled her to make an excellent meal, and after it she smoked cigarettes and sipped creme de menthe with frank gusto.  To me she appeared like a naughty child who instead of meeting with expected punishment finds itself coddled in affectionate arms.  All resentment had died away.  Unreservedly she had laid herself as a “damn fool” at our feet—­or rather at Jaffery’s feet, for I did not count for much.  Instead of blundering over her and tugging her up and otherwise exacerbating her wounds, he lifted her with tactful kindness to her self-respect.  For the first time, save when Susan was the connecting-link, he entered into a spiritual relation with Liosha.  She fulfilled his prophecy—­she was dealing with a soul-shrivelling situation in a big way.  He admired her immensely, as his great robust nature admired immense things.  At the same time he realised all in her that was sore and grievously throbbing and needed the delicate touch.  I shall never forget those few hours.

To dream away a summer’s afternoon had no place, however, in Jaffery’s category of delights.  He must be up and doing.  I have threatened on many restless occasions to rig up at Northlands a gigantic wheel for his benefit similar to that in which Susan’s white mice take futile exercise.  If there was such a wheel he must, I am sure, get in and whirl it round; just as if there is a boat he must row it, or tree to be felled he must fell it, or a hill to be climbed he must climb it.  At Etretat, as it happens, there are two hills.  He stretched forth his hand to one, of course the highest, crowned by the fishermen’s chapel and ordained an ascent.  Liosha was in the chastened mood in which she would have dived with him to the depths of the English Channel.  I, with grudging meekness and a prayer for another five minutes devoted to the deglutition of another liqueur brandy, acquiesced.