Here there was an arbour wreathed in gentle wisteria, where Rivière took
breakfast and the mid-day meal. At nightfall a chill snapped down with
the suddenness of the impetuousness Midi, and his evening meal was
accordingly taken indoors.

Besides this little private preserve of his own, there was the beautiful
public garden of Nîmes--called the Jardin de la Fontaine--draping a
hillside that looks down upon the marble baths of the Romans, almost as
freshly new to-day as two thousand years ago. A thick battalion of trees
at the summit of the hillside makes stubborn insistence to the northern
_mistral_, so that even when the wind tears over the plains of Provence
like a wild fury, scourging and freezing, the Jardin de la Fontaine is
serene and windless. The _mistral_ goes always with a cloudless sky, as
though the clouds were fleeing from its icy keenness, and the sun pours
full upon the semi-circle of the Jardin de la Fontaine, turning it to a
hothouse where the most delicate plants and shrubs can find a home.

Here men and women in toga and flowing draperies have whiled away
leisure hours, spun day-dreams, made love, or schemed affairs of state
and personal ambition. To-day, it is still the resort of Nîmes where
everyone meets everyone else, either by design or by the chance
intercourse of a small town.

On a morning of _mistral_, Rivière was seated in the pleasant warmth of
the Jardin, planning out a special piece of apparatus for his coming
research-work. He was concentrating intently--so intently that he did
not notice Miss Verney passing him with a very professional-looking
campstool, easel and sketch-book.

This second encounter was pure accident. Elaine had no intentions