two generations of painters. In her way she has done more for art than many academies.
"Is Monsieur Tollemache at breakfast, Mademoiselle?" inquired Yvonne.
Julia smiled broadly. Evidently it was the most natural thing imaginable that the pretty American girl, known to everyone in the village, should be asking the whereabouts of the stalwart youngster who would never be an artist, but was one of the hotel's most valued guests.
"Oui, ma chérie! I heard him shouting to Marie for three boiled eggs not so long ago. Out of three eggs one hatches a good meal. And how is your father? I haven't set eyes on him this week."
"He is so busy, Mademoiselle. There is so little daylight."
"Bring him to dinner on Sunday. We're roasting two of the biggest geese you ever saw!"
"He will be delighted, I'm sure."
Then Julia marched to conquer the venders of eatables. There would be a terrific argument; but the founder of modern Pont Aven would prevail.
Yvonne looked in through an open window of a delightful room, paneled in oak – on every panel a picture bearing a signature more or less eminent in the world of color. Tollemache was there, tapping his third egg.
"Lorry," she said, "Father and I are sailing to Le Pouldu. Will you come?"
"Will a duck swim?" was the prompt reply. "When do we start?"
"Soon. Be at the quay in ten minutes."
"By the clock. Plenty of oilskins in the locker?"
"Yes."
She sped away. A Frenchman, an artist who knew the Breton coast in all weathers, shook his head.
"Dangerous work, yachting off Finistère in December," he said. "What sort of boat are you going in?"
"Ingersoll's own tub, a vague– a sardine boat, you know."
"First-rate craft, of course. But mind you're not caught in a change of wind. The barometer is falling."
"Oh, as for that, we'll probably have Peridot in charge, and he was born with a caul; so he'll never be drowned. Even if he's not there, Ingersoll and Yvonne are good sailors, and I'm no fresh-water amateur."
"Well – good luck! I only ask you not to despise the Atlantic. Why is Ingersoll going to Le Pouldu at this time of the year?"
"Don't know, and don't care. It's an unexpected holiday for me; so my Salon study of the Bois d'Amour in winter must miss a day."
The Frenchman sighed; whether on account of the doubtful prospect before Tollemache's Salon picture or because of his own vanished youth, it would be hard to say.
"What a charming peasant girl – and how on earth did she acquire English with that perfect accent?" said a woman, a newcomer.
"She is the daughter of a celebrated American artist," explained the Frenchman.
"But why does she wear the Breton costume?"
"Because she has good taste."
"Oh! Is that a hit at current fashions?"
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. "Madame asked for information," he said. "To wander off into an essay on clothes would be impolite."
Before nine o'clock the Hirondelle, registered No. 415 at Concarneau, was speeding down the seven kilometers of the Aven estuary on a rapid-falling tide. Owing to the force and direction of the wind it would have been a waste of time to hoist a sail, even in those reaches of the winding river where some use might have been made of it. Tollemache and Peridot (whose real name was Jean Jacques Larraidou) rigged two long sweeps, and Yvonne took the tiller, keeping the boat in mid-stream to gain the full benefit of the current. In forty minutes they were abreast of the fortlike hotel at Port Manech, the summer offshoot of the Hotel Julia, and a steel-blue line on the horizon, widening each instant, told of the nearness of the sea. It was an uneven line too, ever and anon broken by a white-capped hillock.
Peridot, pulling his oar inboard, poised himself erect for a few seconds with an arm thrown round the foremast, and gazed steadily seaward. "She'll jump a bit out there," he said; though the fierce whistling of the wind drowned his words. He was aware of that, because he converted both hands into a megaphone when he turned and shouted to Yvonne. "We'll take the inside passage, Ma'mselle."
Before attempting to hoist the foresail he rummaged in a locker and produced oilskin coats and sou'westers. There was no delay. The four donned them quickly. Yvonne had changed her Breton dress for a short skirt and coat of heather mixture cloth, because coif and collar of fine linen were ill adapted to seagoing in rough weather.
Peridot held up three fingers. The girl nodded. Peridot and Tollemache hauled at the sail, and Yvonne kept the boat in the eye of the wind until three reefs were tied securely. Then the Hirondelle swung round to her task. She careened almost to the port gunwale under the first furious lash of the gale, and a sheet of spray beat noisily on oilskins and deck. But the stanch little craft steadied herself, and leaped into her best pace.
Ingersoll dived into the cabin, and reappeared with his pipe alight, the bowl held in a closed and gloved hand. Tollemache made play with a cigarette. Peridot clambered aft to relieve Yvonne.
"We'll make Le Pouldu in little more than the hour," he said.
"It's blowing half a gale," said the girl.
"Yes. If the wind doesn't veer, we should have a record trip. But we shouldn't start back a minute after three o'clock."
"Oh, my father will see to that. Moreover, we're due at Mère Pitou's at six."
Peridot showed all his white teeth in a smile. Madeleine would be there. He meant to marry Madeleine. There was no use in asking her to wed until after the Festival of the Gorse Flowers next August, since her heart was set on being Queen. Once that excitement was ended, Heaven willing, Madeleine Demoret would become Madame Larraidou!
In taking the rudder the man was not showing any distrust of Yvonne's nerve; but there was just a possibility that a crisis might call for instant decision, when the only warning would come from that sixth sense which coastal fishermen develop in counteracting the sea's fitful moods.
Perhaps once during the hour – perhaps not once in a year – some monstrous wave would roar in from the Atlantic, seeking to devour every small craft in its path. No one can account for these phenomena. They may arise from lunar influence, or from some peculiar action of the tides; but that they occur, and with disastrous results if unheeded, every fisherman from Stornoway to Cadiz will testify. Their size and fury are more marked in a southwesterly gale than at any other time, and the only safe maneuver for a boat sailing across the wind is to bring her sharply head on to the fast-moving ridge, and ride over it. Yvonne knew of these occasional sea dragons, but had never seen one. She knew what to do too, and for an instant was vexed with Peridot. He read her thought.
"I'd trust my own life to you, Ma'mselle," he said gallantly; "but I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to you."
She smiled in spite of her pique. To make her voice heard without screaming, she put her lips close to his ear. "This time, if anybody goes, we all go," she cried. He shook his head. "No, no, Ma'mselle. The sea will never get me," he said. "Hold tight here. This is the bar."
Certainly, even among experienced yachtsmen, there would not be lacking those who might have regarded the Hirondelle's present voyage as a piece of folly. There is no wilder coast in Europe than the barrier of shaggy rock that France opposes to the ocean from St. Malo to Biarritz. At Finistère, in particular, each headland is not a breakwater, but a ruin. During heavy storms the seas dash in frenzy up a hundred feet of shattered cliff, the Atlantic having smashed and overthrown every sheer wall of rock ages ago.
Of course the adventurers were not facing a No. 8 gale. That, indeed, would have been rank lunacy. But the estuaries of the Aven and the Belon, joining at Port Manech, were sending down no inconsiderable volume of water to meet a strong wind, and the opposing forces were waging bitter war. A mile farther on a channel ran between the mainland and a group of rocks called Les Verrés. There the tide and wind would not be so greatly at variance, and the partly submerged reef