Then, having passed through Poitiers and Ruffec, they came, three weeks after their start from Paris, to Angoulême, daintiest of cities, perched on its bastioned rocks above the Charente. And here, as it was the penultimate stage of their journey, they sojourned a few days. They stood on the shady rampart and gazed over the red-roofed houses embowered in greenery at the great plain golden in harvest and drenched in sunshine, and sighed. “I dread Brantôme,” said Corinna. “It marks something definite. Hitherto we have been going along vaguely, in a sort of stupefied dream. At Brantôme we’ll have to think.” “I’ve no doubt it will do us good,” said Martin. “I fail to see it,” said Corinna. “We’ll just have the same old worry over again.” “I’m not so sure,” Martin answered. “In the first place we’re not quite the same people as we were three weeks ago——” “Rubbish,” said Corinna. “I’m not the same person at any rate.” She laughed. “Because you give yourself airs nowadays?” “Even my giving myself airs,” he replied soberly, “denotes a change. But it’s deeper than that—it’s difficult to explain. I feel I have a grip on myself I hadn’t before,—and also an intensity of delight in things I never had before. The first half hour or so of our rides in the early dewy mornings, our rough _déjeuners_ outside the little cafés, the long, drowsy afternoons under the trees, watching the lazy life of the road—the wine wagons and the bullock carts and the sunburnt men and women—and the brown, dusty children with their goats—and the quiet evenings under the stars when we have either sat alone saying nothing or else talked to the _patron_ of the _auberge_ and listened to his simple philosophy of life. And then to sleep drunk with air and sunshine between the clean coarse sheets—to sleep like a dog until the scurry of the house wakes you at dawn—I don’t know,” he fetched up lamely. “It has been a thrill, morning, noon and night—and my life before this was remarkably devoid of thrills. Of course,” he added after a slight pause, “you have had a good deal to do with it.” “_Je te remercie infiniment, mon frère_,” said Corinna. “That is as much as to say I’ve not been a too dull companion.” “You’ve been a delightful companion,” he cried boyishly. “I had no idea a girl could be so—so——” He sought for a word with his fingers. Her eyes smiled on him and lips shewed ever so delicate a curl of irony. “So what?” “So companionable,” said he. She laughed again. “What exactly do you mean by that?” “So sensible,” said Martin. “When a man calls a girl sensible, do you know what he means? He means that she doesn’t expect him to fall in love with her. Now you haven’t fallen in love with me, have you?” Martin from his lolling position on the parapet sprang erect. “I should never dream of such a thing!”