X


At all events Robert proposed it, and there was not a dissenting voice.
There was not one but was ready to follow when he led the way. He did
not lead the way, however, he directed the way; and he himself loitered
behind with the lovers, who had betrayed a disposition to linger and
hold themselves apart. He walked between them, whether with malicious or
mischievous intent was not wholly clear, even to himself.

The Pontelliers and Ratignolles walked ahead; the women leaning upon the
arms of their husbands. Edna could hear Robert's voice behind them,
and could sometimes hear what he said. She wondered why he did not join
them. It was unlike him not to. Of late he had sometimes held away from
her for an entire day, redoubling his devotion upon the next and the
next, as though to make up for hours that had been lost. She missed him
the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one
misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun
when it was shining.

The people walked in little groups toward the beach. They talked and
laughed; some of them sang. There was a band playing down at Klein's
hotel, and the strains reached them faintly, tempered by the distance.
There were strange, rare odors abroad--a tangle of the sea smell and of
weeds and damp, new-plowed earth, mingled with the heavy perfume of a
field of white blossoms somewhere near. But the night sat lightly upon