She was a mixture of young girl, child, and little black devil—a very odd little person. “The child is pretty, Peyral, you know,” said the spahis smiling. Jean had noticed, certainly, that she was pretty, but at present this fact interested him very little. He tried to resume quietly his former mode of life, his walks on the beach, and his long expeditions into the country. The quiet, contemplative months spent in camp had done him good. He had almost regained his moral equilibrium. His memories of his aged parents and of his young betrothed, trustfully waiting for him at home in their village, held him once more with their wholesome charm and influence. He had done with childish folly and bravado, and now he could not understand how it was that Dame Virginie had come to number him among her clients. He had vowed not only to give up absinthe, but likewise to remain faithful to his betrothed until the blissful day of their marriage. XXVIII The air was charged with sluggish exhalations, seething with the vital odours and scents of young, growing things. Nature was hastening to carry out her vast plans of procreation. Formerly, on his first arrival, Jean had cast a general look of repulsion on this black population. In his eyes they all seemed alike; they all wore for him the same simian mask, and under that polished surface of oiled ebony he could not have distinguished one individual from another. Little by little, however, he had grown accustomed to these faces. Now he could distinguish among them. When he saw the silver-braceletted, black girls go by, he would compare them; one he considered plain, another pretty, one refined, another degraded. In the end the negresses had for him individual faces, just like white women, and he found them less repulsive than before. XXIX June! It was spring time indeed, but a tropical spring time—fleeting, feverish, full of enervating odours and the air heavy with thunder. Butterflies and birds returned, life was renewed; the humming birds had cast off their grey dress, and arrayed themselves in their brilliant summer colours. The whole country turned green as if by enchantment; the leafy trees now cast a little shade, warm and soft, upon the moist soil; the mimosas, in full flower, looked like enormous bouquets, with pink or orange sprays, where the humming birds sang in tiny little soft voices, like the muted twittering of swallows. Even the clumsy baobabs had put on for a few days fresh leaves of pale, delicate green.... The plains were carpeted with strange flowers, wild grasses, daturas with large, scent-laden calyces. And the showers that watered all things were warm and fragrant, and at evening, above the tall grasses sprung up overnight, the ephemeral fire-flies danced their rounds, like sparks of phosphorus. Nature had been so impatient to bring forth all this abundance that in a single week she had exhausted all her gifts. XXX