"Not yet."

"We'll go this afternoon--Have you been to Honfleur? Not yet?--We'll
go to-morrow. The tide will be in to-day about four--I'll call for
you--wear heavy boots and old clothes. It's jolly dirty. Where do you
breakfast?"

The breakfast was eaten, as a trio, at our inn, an hour later. It was
so warm a day, it was served under one of the arbors. Augustine was
feeding and caressing the doves as we entered the inn garden. At sight
of Renard she dropped a quiet courtesy, smiles and roses struggling for
a supremacy on her round peasant face. She let the doves loose at once,
saying: "Allez, allez," as if they quite understood that with Monsieur
Renard's advent their hour of success was at an end.

Why does a man's presence always seem to communicate such surprising
animation to a woman--to any woman? Why does his appearance, for
instance, suddenly, miraculously stiffen the sauces, lure from the
cellar bottles incrusted with the gray of thick cobwebs, give an added
drop of the lemon to the mayonnaise, and make an omelette to swim in a
sea of butter? All these added touches to our commonly admirable
breakfast were conspicuous that day--it was a breakfast for a prince
and a gourmet.

"The Mere can cook--when she gives her mind to it," was Renard's meagre
masculine comment, as the last morsel of the golden omelette
disappeared behind his mustache.

It was a gay little breakfast, with the circling above of the birds and
the doves. There are duller forms of pleasure than to eat a repast in