Charming people they were, and compassionate and wise, thought Giles, sitting there among them in the pellucid shadow while the gulls floated past in the golden light. Strains of Gluck’s “Orpheus” floated with the gulls through his mind. The thought of the young painter’s wife, lost in the shades, suggested that music, perhaps. But it was an Elysian scene. When they were dispersed, all driving in monsieur de Valenbois’ car to Allongeville for tennis, all except monsieur de Maubert who withdrew to his room—to sleep, Giles imagined—Giles himself did not write letters. He wandered along the cliff-path and saw the lovely shore curving, far away, in azure bays beneath the gold-white cliffs. He looked at the scene and was not consciously absorbed in thought; but a process of testing, of reëstablishing, went on within him as if he felt about his roots to see that they were firm. He would have need of firmness, and the figure of Toppie went with him as an exorcising presence. It was late when the party returned and assembled for a supper of _consommé_, chicken salad and a cream for which Albertine, saturnine yet complacent, was warmly praised. Alix looked drugged with happiness and fatigue and madame Vervier soon sent her to bed. Mademoiselle Blanche Fontaine, in the drawing-room with madame Vervier and monsieur de Maubert, read aloud the manuscript of a new play; the young artist went away to his hotel on the _place_, and monsieur de Valenbois sat for a little while with Giles on the steps of the verandah to look at the fading dyes of the sunset and to talk of Scriabin, Stravinsky, and the Russian ballet. Giles had to own that he did not care much about the Russian ballet. He was always having to own things to monsieur de Valenbois who showed the happiest interest in his lapses, giving utterance, now and then, to a gentle long-drawn “_Tiens!_” Giles himself was very tired, however, and felt that he could not adequately defend his theories which rested upon an objection to the use of the body as a means of primitive expressionism. He soon said good-night and went up to his wonderful little room. After he had gone to bed he lay for a long time awake, a fold of the coarse cool linen that smelt of orris root against his cheek. He heard mademoiselle Fontaine go away to her own villa, escorted by the other three. Then, when they returned, the _Sacre du Printemps_ came softly humming up the stairs, showing him that monsieur de Valenbois was also going to bed. After that the only voices left below were those of monsieur de Maubert and his hostess, sitting in quiet converse on the verandah. They talked meditatively with pauses of appreciation for the beauty of the night, and madame Vervier must once have risen to advance and look out into the starry vastness, for Giles heard her say “_Tiens;—qu’elle est grande, notre étoile, ce soir!_”