“And will he be the only guest except me?” “Ah, that I do not know. There are three _chambres d’invités_ at Les Chardonnerets. But I have not heard that there is, as yet, anyone else.” “Chardonnerets? That means?” “It means goldfinches. That was a bird we always knew, even”—Alix paused—“even before your brother told us more of birds. Flocks come in Autumn to the thistles on the cliffs outside our gate. When they all fly together one sees the squares of gold on their wings—it makes a pattern on the sky, like a chain of golden coins; monsieur de Maubert’s strange old square coins. And their little twitter is like the chink of thin gold. We love them, Maman and I, and there is a tall ash-tree in the garden where they often perch in summer. You will see them, Giles. You will like Les Chardonnerets, I think.—Oh, now—I recognize now—I know those woods. We find daffodils in them, in Spring, among the faggots. You have not in England, have you, Giles, our great woods with all the ranged faggots that the woodmen pile so carefully in winter. And in Spring, at the edge of the wood, one sees around one the great plain, champagne-coloured. The next station will be ours,” said Alix. CHAPTER III He could hardly find again the face of the February day in the Bois. It was her form, her poise that gave her to one now, and Giles’s first impression of the white, sunlit figure waiting on the platform was of a Greek Victory, splendid, strong, exultant. Her face, under the falling lines of a white hat, was almost dissolved in a transparent shadow; only its grave, fixed smile, like a pearl in golden wine, remained, as it were, shaped and palpable. He had seen her as the _Parisienne_; the creature of elegance and artifice; but he found her almost primitive, set here in the sea-breezes, and so much more robust than he had remembered; if anything so delicate could so be called. Freshness and force breathed from her, and the classic analogies she brought to his mind were emphasized by her straightly falling dress—a tennis-dress, perhaps, for her arms were bare—tying at the breast with tassels and at the waist with a loosely knotted sash. “_Ma chérie! Ma petite chérie!_” she said. The train had come to a standstill and it was as if Alix had flown into her arms. She had been as silent as a spectre on that spectral day when he had first seen her. Her voice now startled him, as the missel-thrush’s voice had done. Tears were in it and tears were in her eyes as she clasped her child. And then, again, as they stood embraced, it was of something Greek they made Giles think; some beautiful relief on the pediment of a sunlit temple; garlands above them and happy maidens in procession on either side carrying baskets of fruit and chanting the reunion of mother and child. Ceres and Persephone it might be. Happy little Persephone, escaped at last from the kingdom of Dis.