So they, too, went off, with Paris for their first resting-place, and it was quite astonishing how many consultations became necessary between Bell and Jack, before it could be at all decided whether there was a chance of the three drifting together in some odd corner. Considering how often, with all the pains in the world taken to bring it about, some meeting towards which hearts are straining fails, it had to be owned that this chance was slight. Bell and Jack, however, were young enough to think very well of a slight chance. Bell argued that in small country places, where only one tolerable inn existed, there was a far greater likelihood of meeting than in a great city where there were fifty, and Jack was certain, from no grounds at all, that something would throw Everitt into Kitty's path. But they were doomed to receive a blow. Bell one day found a distracted letter from Mrs Marchmont. "It has all come to _nothing_! I have just heard from Charlie that he is already sick of Normandy cider and cart horses, that he has met with a horrid man--_he_ likes him--who has persuaded him to try Auvergne, and that they will go off there at once. Auvergne! Did you ever know anything so stupid? My one consolation is that it is the very plainest country I ever beheld, and I hope he will be bored to death by it. Of course, there is not the smallest chance of the Lascelles going to Auvergne; I should not have the face even to suggest it to them. So there's an end of it all, and I think men are the most tiresome creatures in the world--except women." It was too true. Led away by this tempter in the person of another artist, Everitt had broken off from the path of duty so carefully marked out for him by his cousin, and made his way towards Paris. He reached it on the day the Lascelles left. With Kitty the experiment had apparently been very successful. It was the first time that she had crossed the Channel, and the lightness of the air, the freshness of the colouring, and the general picturesqueness of things, delighted her from the moment of landing. She and her mother were excellent companions, and, indeed, to Mrs Lascelles the sense of holiday-making was even stronger than with her daughter. She was like a girl again, enjoying everything with a keen sense of reprieve from the duties of ordering dinner and thinking of dishes which should please, at any rate, the majority. She liked Paris better than Kitty liked it, and would have been well enough content to have stayed there, and made excursions to the old towns; but Brittany had an attraction for the girl, so they kept to their first plan, and left Paris for Dinan _on_ the day, as has been said, that Everitt arrived there.