They quickly became better acquainted with Madame Saratoff, who, it seemed, had been in Brittany before and knew the coast thoroughly. She explained that the little hotel became unendurable later with the _canaille des artistes_, and so she had rented an old _manoir_ in the neighborhood, which was being put to rights for her. The next afternoon the three walked to see the _manoir_ through a maze of little lanes. It was a lovely old gray building with crumbling walls and had evidently once been the seat of a considerable family. But only a half dozen rooms were now habitable, and in the cracks of the great walls that surrounded the garden thick roots of creepers twisted and curled upwards. From the other end of the garden, through a break in the old hedge, there was a glimpse of the sea, and in one corner was the ruin of a chapel surmounted by an iron cross. Madame Saratoff showed them all the rooms, into which men were putting some furniture she had bought in the neighborhood--old _armoires_ and brass-bound chests of black oak as well as some modern iron beds and dressing-tables. Milly admired the peaceful gray _manoir_, and Bragdon observed as they retraced their way alone through the lanes:-- "That woman has a lot of energy in her! It shows in her movements--she has personality, character." Milly had never heard him say as much as that about any other woman, and she wondered how such large generalizations could be made from the fact that a woman was fitting up an old house. She was vaguely jealous, as any woman might be, that her husband should choose just those qualities for commendation. She went often thereafter to the _manoir_ while her husband was painting, and marvelled at the ease and sureness with which the Russian installed herself, her only helpers being the stupid peasants, who seemed to understand no language but their own jargon. "I'm used to driving cattle," the Russian explained to Milly with a little laugh. "You see my father had estates in southern Russia, and I lived there a good deal before I was married." "They must be quite important," Milly reported to Jack. "They seem to know people all over Europe." "Oh, that's Russian," he explained. "And Baron Saratoff is away on a most important mission." "Absent husbands ought to be!" "I don't believe she cares for him much." "How can you tell that so soon?" "Oh!" Milly replied vaguely, as if that were a point few women could keep from other women. As a matter of fact the Russian lady had given Milly some new and startling lights upon marriage.