It was not such an arduous climb after all.  A light breeze tempered the fury of the July sun.  The grass was crisp and agreeable to the feet.  The smell of wild thyme mingling with the salt of the low-tide seaweed conveyed stimulating fragrance.  When we reached the top and Jaffery suggested that we should lie down, I protested.  Why not walk along the edge of the inspiring cliffs?

“It’s all very well for you, who’ve slept like a log all night,” said he throwing his huge bulk on the ground, “but Liosha and I need rest.”

Liosha stood glowing on the hilltop and panting a little after the quick ascent.  A little curly strand on her forehead played charmingly in the wind which blew her skirts close around her in fine modelling.  I thought of the Winged Victory.

“I’m not a bit tired,” she said.

But seeing Jaffery definitely prone with his bearded chin on his fists, she glanced at me as though she should say:  “Who are we to go contrary to his desires?” and settled down beside him.

So I stretched myself, too, on the grass and we watched the dancing sea and the flashing sails of fishing boats and the long plume from a steamer in the offing and the little town beneath us and the tiny golfers on the cliff on the other side of the bay, and were in fact giving ourselves up to an idyllic afternoon, when suddenly Liosha broke the spell.

“If I had got hold of that man this morning I think I would have killed him.”

Since leaving Havre we had not referred to unhappy things.

“It would have served him right,” said Jaffery.

“I did strike him once.”

“Oh?” said I.

“Yes.”  She looked out to sea.  There was a pause.  I longed to hear the details of the scene, which could not have lacked humorous elements.  But she left them to my imagination.  “After that,” she continued, “he saw I was an honest woman and talked about marriage.”

Jaffery’s fingers fiddled with bits of grass.  “What licks me, my dear,” said he, “is how you came to take up with the fellow.”

She shrugged her shoulders—­it was the full shrug of the un-English child of nature.  “I don’t know,” she said, with her gaze still far away.  “He was so funny.”

“But he was such a bounder, old lady,” said Jaffery, in gentle remonstrance.

“You all said so.  But I thought you didn’t like him because he was different and could make me laugh.  I guess I hated you all very much.  You seemed to want me to behave like Euphemia, and I couldn’t behave like Euphemia.  I tried very hard when you used to take me out to dinner.”

Jaffery looked at her comically.  But all he said was:  “Go on.”

“What can I say?”—­she shrugged her shoulders again.  “With him I hadn’t to be on my best behaviour.  I could say anything I liked.  You all think it dreadful because I know, like everybody else, how children come into the world, and can make jokes about things like that.  Emma used to say it was not ladylike—­but he—­he did not say so.  He laughed.  His friends used to laugh.  With him and his friends, I could, so to speak, take off my stays”—­she threw out her hands largely—­“ouf!”