The baron sat in the bows and managed the sail, performing the duties of a sailor, and Jeanne and the vicomte were side by side, both feeling a little agitated. Their glances were continually meeting, a hidden sympathy making them raise their eyes at the same moment, for there was already that vague, subtle fondness between them which springs up so quickly between two young people when the youth is good-looking and the girl is pretty. They felt happy at being close together, perhaps because each was thinking of the other. The sun rose higher in the sky as if to consider from a better vantage point the vast sea stretched out beneath him, while the latter, like a coquette, enveloped herself in a light mist which veiled her from his rays. It was a transparent golden haze which hid nothing but softened everything. It gradually melted away before the sun's flaming darts, and when the full heat of the day began it disappeared entirely, and the sea, smooth as glass, lay glittering in the sun. Jeanne murmured enthusiastically, "How lovely it is!" The vicomte answered "Yes, it is indeed beautiful." And their hearts felt as bright as the clear morning itself. Suddenly, looking as if the cliff bestrode part of the sea, appeared the great arcades of Etretat, high enough for a ship to pass underneath him without the point of a sharp white rock rising out of the water before the first one. When they reached the shore, the vicomte lifted Jeanne out that she should not wet her feet in landing, while the baron held the boat close to the beach with a rope; then they went up the steep, shingly beach side by side, both agitated by this short embrace, and they heard old Lastique say to the baron: "In my opinion they'd make a very handsome couple." They had lunch in a little inn near the beach. On the sea they had been quiet, but at the table they had as much to say as children let out of school. The most simple things gave rise to endless laughter. Old Lastique carefully put his pipe, which was still alight, into his cap before he sat down to table; and everyone laughed. A fly, attracted, no doubt, by the sailor's red nose, persisted on settling on it, and when moving too slowly to catch it he knocked it away, it went over to a very fly-spotted curtain whence it seemed to eagerly watch the sailor's highly-colored nasal organ, for it soon flew back and settled on it again. Each time the insect returned a loud laugh burst out, and when the old man, annoyed by its tickling, murmured: "What a confoundly obstinate fly!" Jeanne and the vicomte laughed till they cried, holding their serviettes to their mouths to prevent themselves shrieking out loud. When the coffee had been served Jeanne said: "Suppose we go for a walk?" The vicomte got up to go with her, but the baron preferred going out on the beach to take his nap. "You two go," he said. "You will find me here in an hour's time."