choppy, stiff wind that whipped the water into froth. It fluttered the
skirts of the two women and kept them for a while engaged in adjusting,
readjusting, tucking in, securing hair-pins and hat-pins. A few persons
were sporting some distance away in the water. The beach was very still
of human sound at that hour. The lady in black was reading her morning
devotions on the porch of a neighboring bathhouse. Two young lovers were
exchanging their hearts' yearnings beneath the children's tent, which
they had found unoccupied.

Edna Pontellier, casting her eyes about, had finally kept them at rest
upon the sea. The day was clear and carried the gaze out as far as the
blue sky went; there were a few white clouds suspended idly over the
horizon. A lateen sail was visible in the direction of Cat Island, and
others to the south seemed almost motionless in the far distance.

"Of whom--of what are you thinking?" asked Adele of her companion,
whose countenance she had been watching with a little amused attention,
arrested by the absorbed expression which seemed to have seized and
fixed every feature into a statuesque repose.

"Nothing," returned Mrs. Pontellier, with a start, adding at once: "How
stupid! But it seems to me it is the reply we make instinctively to
such a question. Let me see," she went on, throwing back her head and
narrowing her fine eyes till they shone like two vivid points of light.
"Let me see. I was really not conscious of thinking of anything; but
perhaps I can retrace my thoughts."

"Oh! never mind!" laughed Madame Ratignolle. "I am not quite so
exacting. I will let you off this time. It is really too hot to think,
especially to think about thinking."