Kent did not regret Norway. A charm, unknown to him before, filled all the days. The Farquharsons were perfect travelling companions: Caroline bright, satirical, helpful, learned in the ways of men; George easy-going, happy either to lounge in the sun with a pipe and bandy chaff with his wife, whilst Kent and Clytie went their own ways, or to spend an antiquarian afternoon with Kent in some old Keltic village. Clytie seemed also to him to expand under the sunny cheerful influences, to grow more feminine, without falling in his estimation. No; he did not regret Norway. He half formulated an intention of abandoning it permanently and substituting Brittany as his habitual tramping-ground. From the first morning, when his boat steamed slowly through the narrow St. Malo docks, and he saw Clytie waiting there to meet him, he felt friendly towards it. The high ramparted wall, with just the top-story row of green shutters and roofs peeping above it, and beyond them the spire of the cathedral; the glimpse through the sentry-guarded gate up the narrow cobble-paved street, gaudy with blue blouses, red handkerchiefs, and yellow oilskins exposed all along at shop doors; on the quay itself the stalls of the hucksters under the lee of the wall, and the busy crowd of swarthy Breton sailors, porters, and green uniformed _douaniers_; and Clytie standing, fresh in her pure colouring heightened by the light summer dress, in the midst of this mellow setting--all the picture fixed itself as a whole indelibly upon his mind, and caused a strange little thrill of pleasure to run through him. They sat on the sands--the finest in the world, perhaps, when the tide is low--that run in a broad, golden sweep from crag-bastioned, grim old St. Malo to the white houses of Parame, amid the babel of bathers and visitors, watching the types Parisian and English, Kent smoking contentedly, while Clytie filled her sketch-book with oddities of personality and costume. Three days slipped away there very pleasantly.