Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/27

 aware of a need for holding him up; yet he knew that but for Jill's imperturbable confidence he might have fallen more than once into the disorders of his morose and rebellious youth.

'Any luck?' she asked him now, and it was characteristic of her to put his artistic activities in the category of sport. She would feel towards his canvas as towards a good basket of trout.

'Yes. Excellent. This country surpasses everything. Where have you been?'

'Oh, for miles; over the mountains. There are tablelands up there with endless birch-woods on them. And I found a great blue lake. But nothing's better than this. Nothing could be better than that river.'

From the river wall they gazed down the golden flood to where, beyond a beetling, wooded promontory, dark against the sunset, it turned in a vast curve and seemed to brood across the golden plains. Opposite Buissac the shores were less steep and russet vineyards climbed, from ledge to ledge of quiet hillside, above another hamlet, its evening cries faintly wafted.

At the turn of the river the promontory ran a long foot out into the stream, a green peninsula, its poplars shimmering against the sky. They could see that cattle grazed there, three cream-coloured cows, half dissolved in light, moving among the poplar groves.

'It's all so gentle; yet it's almost dreadful, too,' Jill murmured.

'Dreadful? How do you mean?'

'That great, dark cliff, hanging over everything like