They chose the shade of a great beech for their picnic-ground.  Cellette ordered them to one side, and started to unpack the lunch-basket that had come with Leighton from his hotel.  As each item was revealed she cast a sidelong glance at Leighton.

“My old one,” she said to him when all was properly laid out, “do not play at youth and innocence any longer.  It takes an old sinner to order such a breakfast.”

It was a gay meal and a good one, and, like all good meals, led to drowsiness.  Cellette made a pillow of Lewis’s coat and slept.  The afternoon was very hot.  Leighton finished his second cigar, and then tapped Lewis on the shoulder.  They slipped beyond the screen of the low-limbed beech, stripped, and stole into the river.

At the first thoughtless splash Cellette sprang to her feet.

“Ah!” she cried, her eyes lighting, “you bathe, hein?” She started undoing her bodice.

Leighton stared at her from the water.  “What do you do?” he cried in rapid French.  “You cannot bathe.  I won’t allow it.”

Cellette paused in sheer amazement that any one should think there was anything she could not do.  Then deliberately she continued undoing hooks.

“Why can’t I bathe?” she asked out of courtesy or merely because she knew the value of keeping up a conversation.

“You can’t bathe,” said Leighton, desperately, “because you are too tender, too delicate.  These waters are—­miasmic.  They are full of snakes, too.  It was just now that I stepped on one.”

“Snakes, eh?” said Cellette, pausing again.  “I don’t believe you.  But—­snakes!” She shuddered, and then looked as though she were going to cry with disappointment.

“Don’t you mind just this once, Cellette,” cried Lewis, blowing like a walrus as he held his place against the current.  “We’ll come alone some time.”

Cellette dried the perspiration from her short upper lip with a little cotton handkerchief.

“Mon dieu, but men are selfish!” she remarked.

Once they were in the boat again, drifting slowly down the shadowy river, she forgot her pet, turned suddenly gay, and began to sing songs that were as foreign to that still sunset scene as was Cellette herself to a dairy.  Lewis had heard them before.  He looked upon them merely as one of Cellette’s moods, but they brought a twisted smile to Leighton’s lips.  He glanced at the pompous, indignant setting sun and winked.  The sun did not wink back; he was surly.

In the train, Cellette, tired and happy, went to sleep.  Her head fell on Leighton’s shoulder.  With dexterous fingers he took off her hat and laid it aside, then he looked at Lewis shrewdly.  But Lewis showed no signs, of jealousy.  He merely laughed silently and whispered, “Isn’t she a funny?”

They began to talk.  Leighton told Lewis he was glad that he had worked steadily all these months, that Le Brux spoke well of his work, but thought a rest would help it and him.