leans with Celina's husband.

Celina's husband was a fool, a coward, and a pig, and to prove it to
her, Victor intended to hammer his head into a jelly the next time he
encountered him. This assurance was very consoling to Mariequita. She
dried her eyes, and grew cheerful at the prospect.

They were still talking of the dinner and the allurements of city life
when Mrs. Pontellier herself slipped around the corner of the house. The
two youngsters stayed dumb with amazement before what they considered
to be an apparition. But it was really she in flesh and blood, looking
tired and a little travel-stained.

"I walked up from the wharf", she said, "and heard the hammering. I
supposed it was you, mending the porch. It's a good thing. I was always
tripping over those loose planks last summer. How dreary and deserted
everything looks!"

It took Victor some little time to comprehend that she had come in
Beaudelet's lugger, that she had come alone, and for no purpose but to
rest.

"There's nothing fixed up yet, you see. I'll give you my room; it's the
only place."

"Any corner will do," she assured him.

"And if you can stand Philomel's cooking," he went on, "though I might
try to get her mother while you are here. Do you think she would come?"
turning to Mariequita.

Mariequita thought that perhaps Philomel's mother might come for a few
days, and money enough.

Beholding Mrs. Pontellier make her appearance, the girl had at once
suspected a lovers' rendezvous. But Victor's astonishment was so
genuine, and Mrs. Pontellier's indifference so apparent, that the
disturbing notion did not lodge long in her brain. She contemplated with
the greatest interest this woman who gave the most sumptuous dinners in
America, and who had all the men in New Orleans at her feet.

"What time will you have dinner?" asked Edna. "I'm very hungry; but
don't get anything extra."

"I'll have it ready in little or no time," he said, bustling and packing
away his tools. "You may go to my room to brush up and rest yourself.
Mariequita will show you."

"Thank you", said Edna. "But, do you know, I have a notion to go down to
the beach and take a good wash and even a little swim, before dinner?"

"The water is too cold!" they both exclaimed. "Don't think of it."

"Well, I might go down and try--dip my toes in. Why, it seems to me the
sun is hot enough to have warmed the very depths of the ocean. Could you
get me a couple of towels? I'd better