We did not shake hands nor make any demonstration beyond the lifting of a hat on my part and a slight nod on Rhoda Polly's. We might have been the merest acquaintances, yet no sooner were we alongside each other, walking on the same path, than the old understanding, trustful and confident, took hold of us. The spring on the slopes of the Rhone and the Durance comes early, and is the fairest time of the year. On the sandy tracts between the rivers we passed a world of fine things. The whole peninsula, almost correctly V-shaped, had been so often overflowed by the turbulent Durance that the permanent shrubs, the bushes of broom, thyme, and cistus had ascended the little rocky knolls which could keep their heads above water. But where our path wound was a delightful wilderness of alternate sun and shadow, black umbrageous stone pines, laurel, myrtle, and clove, planted out as in a nursery garden, yet all wild, the seeds brought down by the river, and now (like Shem and his brothers scattering from Ararat) true Children of the Flood. On the way Rhoda Polly ran hither and thither gathering flowers. With us at Aramon the spring is well under way before the autumn flowers are tired of blooming. She gathered purple colt's-foot and orchis, yellow iris and goats' honeysuckle. Troops of butterflies attended us, especially the Red Admiral and the swift poising Humming Bird Moth, some of them so large as to look like the bird itself. Even Bates on his beloved Amazon was deceived by it, as I took care to tell Rhoda Polly. We arrived at the edge of the crossing, and from the bank I shouted for Jeanne to take us over. She came down tall and nonchalant, an oar over her shoulder, unlocked the padlock and rowed unconcernedly across. She stood to help Rhoda Polly in, and then handed me the bow oar as was our habit like one long accustomed to such visits. I delayed introductions till we had reached the farther side. Rhoda Polly gave Jeanne her hand with the swift grip of liking. But I saw a glow in Jeanne's eyes as she took the oar away from me and marched with them both over her shoulder to the house. "Mademoiselle Deventer, mother," she cried, "come to visit us. Monsieur has brought her--so kind of Monsieur!" And Jeanne vanished round the corner with a kind of swirl of her pretty figure, the oar-blades swooping perilously after her. "I say," whispered Rhoda Polly, "that girl has never worn stays. Did you see her waist and hips when she turned--a full half circle? None of us, pinched-up wretches that we are, could do that! It was beautiful, the poetry of motion." I did not say so aloud, but I knew that it was something quite different on Jeanne's part--in fact, a little fling of temper. And with the thought of opening out the matter of Alida on the way home, I began to wish that Rhoda Polly and I had taken another road than that which led to the riverside hostelry of the Sambre-et-Meuse.