Then M. Bontemps rushed into the house, and quickly emerged again, leading by the hand Mlle. Geneviève, reluctant, downcast, who instantly turned her back on all three, and looked down the gorge in gloomy silence, while the others declaimed, singly and in unison, with gestures of entreaty, to the massive and glossy coils of her back hair. At last she turned sharply and faced them with a fierce energy, that almost precipitated them backwards down the ridge and drove them to the balustrade, where the risen sun touched their faces with ruddy gold. Mlle. Geneviève then wept bitterly; her father placed his hand despairingly on his heart and groaned; her mother stormed; M. Isidore covered his face with his hands, with a movement of such despair as suggested the advisability of putting an end to his sufferings by springing down the steep. Instead of this, with an alarming suddenness that drove Mlle. Bontemps back to the other side, he threw out his arms and sprang forwards, directing what sounded like a torrent of abuse upon Mlle. Geneviève, who shrank and quailed beneath it, and then lifted her hands appealingly to Heaven with renewed weeping. A general engagement--to witness which the gardeners left the hose to its own discretion, with the unexpected result of very nearly drenching the whole of the combatants--then took place with such energy and apparent fury that Ermengarde, terror-stricken and in default of police, was about to cry "_Au secours!_" when M. Isidore suddenly hurled himself weeping upon the ample bosom of Madame Bontemps, who tenderly embraced and kissed him; after which Monsieur fall upon his neck in such wise that the two men represented an inverted V, when they kissed on both cheeks and parted. Then Mlle. Geneviève, with downcast eyes and reluctant step, led by her mother and encouraged by her father, allowed M. Isidore to take both her hands and respectfully salute her on both cheeks, and sudden calm fell upon the quartette, now in full sunshine. After this, as if nothing had happened, they strolled, casually chatting, about the little platform, M. Bontemps yawning and resuming his interrupted cigarette, and Madame leaning over the railing; that looked across the chasm towards the garden, and composedly issuing commands to the gardeners before returning to the house. Thither she was accompanied by her daughter, now restored to cheerfulness and executing a graceful _pas seul_ to that mad Carnival tune of the day before, as she went, while Ermengarde, unconscious of her deficient toilet, remained petrified at her balcony, staring blankly at the sunny sea and the hill-crest topped by the convent, every olive, pine and cypress on which was now clear and distinct in a flood of brilliant sunshine.