Her words rang with a childlike joy. He asked where Perros-Guirec was in a voice that was somewhat desolate at the prospect of losing her. "It's in Brittany--a whole day's journey from Paris. I was there two years ago, and sketched most of the time. Everybody is thinking of leaving now, the heat will soon be getting unbearable. The Grand Prix has been run, the Battle of Flowers has been fought, and the Allee de Longchamps is deserted. All the smart people are in _villegiature_. How nice is the evening after the sultry day!" They were passing through the Boulevard St. Germain. Miss Brooke was sitting just close enough to Paul for them to touch with the swaying of the carriage. He felt singularly happy. The hushed sounds of the city over which the dusk hung mystic came to him like a soft sustained tone of music; its lights gleamed in upon them with magic rays. He was conscious of the great dark masses of palaces, of shadowy pedestrians moving noiselessly on the side-paths. No fever in the air now, only a far-reaching calm. "The night makes one almost sorry to leave Paris," resumed Miss Brooke. Her voice made the harmonies sweeter, blending them all into one perfect harmony. "But the breezes, and the woods, and the rye-fields, and the farm-houses with their delicious old oak presses, and the kind-hearted people, and the quaint children who love to watch you sketch and see you squeeze the paint out of the tubes--the memory of all these things draws you back to them. I long for Brittany almost as much as I once longed to leave everything and everybody and be just myself--and by myself. It seems so long ago now." She had almost unconsciously moved closer to him now. "Won't you tell me when that was--Lisa?" It was the first time he had dared to call her by this name. In his longing to utter it in articulate speech it had rushed to the tip of his tongue. "It was three years ago--before I came here. Every place had associations that hurt me. I wanted to get away--to work, work, work. I seemed to hate everybody. So I came here, and for months I thought I was as hard as a stone. Then one day I found myself angry with a girl--a fellow-student--and I was quite surprised to find I could feel at all. And then I was suddenly glad I was a human being again." Her voice melted away into the vast murmur of the soft-twinkling city. Beyond the fact that he was selfishly glad she had had trouble--it afforded him the exquisite pleasure of sympathy--there was no active thought in him now, no estimation of the position. His soul alone dominated; it had been moved to responsiveness and it now wrought out its mood, subtly surrounding her, he felt, with its comfort.