“All the lines are so simple,” the artist explained.  “The shore, the sea, the gray rocks, with here and there the roof of a quaint cottage to enliven the effect, and few trees, only just enough for contrast with the long, sweeping lines.”

“You don’t like trees?” asked Miss Lamont.

“Yes, in themselves.  But trees are apt to be in the way.  There are too many trees in America.  It is not often you can get a broad, simple effect like this.”

It happened to be a day when the blue of the sea was that of the Mediterranean, and the sky and sea melted into each other, so that a distant sail-boat seemed to be climbing into the heavens.  The waves rolled in blue on the white sand beach, and broke in silver.  Three young girls on horseback galloping in a race along the hard beach at the moment gave the needed animation to a very pretty picture.

North of this the land comes down to the sea in knolls of rock breaking off suddenly-rocks gray with lichen, and shaded with a touch of other vegetation.  Between these knifeback ledges are plots of sea-green grass and sedge, with little ponds, black, and mirroring the sky.  Leaving this wild bit of nature, which has got the name of Paradise (perhaps because few people go there), the road back to town sweeps through sweet farm land; the smell of hay is in the air, loads of hay encumber the roads, flowers in profusion half smother the farm cottages, and the trees of the apple-orchards are gnarled and picturesque as olives.

The younger members of the party climbed up into this paradise one day, leaving the elders in their carriages.  They came into a new world, as unlike Newport as if they had been a thousand miles away.  The spot was wilder than it looked from a distance.  The high ridges of rock lay parallel, with bosky valleys and ponds between, and the sea shining in the south—­all in miniature.  On the way to the ridges they passed clean pasture fields, bowlders, gray rocks, aged cedars with flat tops like the stone-pines of Italy.  It was all wild but exquisite, a refined wildness recalling the pictures of Rousseau.

Irene and Mr. King strolled along one of the ridges, and sat down on a rock looking off upon the peaceful expanse, the silver lines of the curving shores, and the blue sea dotted with white sails.

“Ah,” said the girl, with an inspiration, “this is the sort of five-o’clock I like.”

“And I’m sure I’d rather be here with you than at the Blims’ reception, from which we ran away.”

“I thought,” said Irene, not looking at him, and jabbing the point of her parasol into the ground, “I thought you liked Newport.”

“So I do, or did.  I thought you would like it.  But, pardon me, you seem somehow different from what you were at Fortress Monroe, or even at lovely Atlantic City,” this with a rather forced laugh.

“Do I?  Well, I suppose I am; that is, different from what you thought me.  I should hate this place in a week more, beautiful as it is.”