Mildred could only laugh at him; and, while he packed up his canvases, paint-box, and easel, she thought about him. She thought that she understood him, and fancied that she would be able to manage him. And convinced of her power she said aloud, as they plunged into the forest: 'I always think it is a pity that it is considered vulgar to walk arm in arm. I like to take an arm.... I suppose we can do what we like in the forest of Fontainebleau. But you're too heavily laden--' 'No, not a bit. I should like it.' She took his arm and walked by his side with a sweet caressing movement, and they talked eagerly until they reached the motive of his second picture. 'What I've got on the canvas isn't very much like the view in front of you, is it?' 'No, not much, I don't like it as well as the other picture.' 'I began it late one evening. I've never been able to get the same effect again. Now it looks like a Puvis de Chavannes--not my picture, but that hillside, that large space of blue sky and the wood-cutters.' 'It does a little. Are you going on with it?' 'Why?' 'Because there is no shade for me to sit in. I shall be roasted if we remain here.' 'What shall we do? Lie down in some shady place?' 'We might do that.... I know what I should like.' 'What?' 'A long drive in the forest.' 'A capital idea. We can do that. We shall meet some one going to Barbizon. We'll ask them to send us a fly.' Their way lay through a pine wood where the heat was stifling; the dry trees were like firewood scorched and ready to break into flame; and their steps dragged through the loose sand. And, when they had passed this wood, they came to a place where the trees had all been felled, and a green undergrowth of pines, two or three feet high, had sprung up. It was difficult to force their way through; the prickly branches were disagreeable to touch, and underneath the ground was spongy, with layers of fallen needles hardly covered with coarse grass. Morton missed the way, and his paint-box and canvases had begun to weigh heavy when they came upon the road they were seeking. But where they came upon it, there was only a little burnt grass, and Morton proposed that they should toil on until they came to a pleasanter place.