the drive to Portsmouth, the thought of her had run through him like
fire; but now that she was beside him, and they were drifting forth
into this unknown world, they seemed to have reached the kind of deeper
nearness that a touch may sunder.

As the boat left the harbour and turned seaward a breeze stirred about
them and the bay broke up into long oily undulations, then into ripples
tipped with spray. The fog of sultriness still hung over the city, but
ahead lay a fresh world of ruffled waters, and distant promontories
with light-houses in the sun. Madame Olenska, leaning back against the
boat-rail, drank in the coolness between parted lips. She had wound a
long veil about her hat, but it left her face uncovered, and Archer was
struck by the tranquil gaiety of her expression. She seemed to take
their adventure as a matter of course, and to be neither in fear of
unexpected encounters, nor (what was worse) unduly elated by their
possibility.

In the bare dining-room of the inn, which he had hoped they would have
to themselves, they found a strident party of innocent-looking young
men and women--school-teachers on a holiday, the landlord told
them--and Archer's heart sank at the idea of having to talk through
their noise.

"This is hopeless--I'll ask for a private room," he said; and Madame
Olenska, without offering any objection, waited while he went in search
of it. The room opened on a long wooden verandah, with the sea coming
in at the windows. It was bare and cool, with a table covered with a
coarse checkered cloth and adorned by a bottle of pickles and a
blueberry pie under a cage. No more guileless-looking cabinet
particulier ever offered its shelter to a clandestine couple: Archer
fancied he saw the sense of its reassurance in the faintly amused smile
with which Madame Olenska sat down opposite to him. A woman who had
run away from her husband--and reputedly with another man--was likely
to have mastered the art of taking things for granted; but something in
the quality of her composure took the edge from his irony. By being so
quiet, so unsurprised and so simple she had managed to brush away the
conventions and make him feel that to seek to be alone was the natural
thing for two old friends who had so much to say to each other....

XXIV.

They lunched slowly and meditatively, with mute intervals between
rushes of talk; for, the spell once broken, they had much to say, and
yet moments when sayin