These various
discoveries rather took him aback, and resulted in increasing his
reserve almost to the point of rudeness. He still only met her at
the table d'hote, and never attempted to approach at any other time,
although she had asked him repeatedly if he did not take walks or
make excursions into the country.
One morning, soon after the conversation about the donkey, he went
down to the beach, where, it being the bathing hour, the whole
visiting population of Ault was assembled. The coast met the sea at
this point as a perpendicular wall of rock a hundred and fifty feet
high, stretching away to the west in an endless line, but on the
east side, sloping gradually down, till about two miles further on,
it lost itself in the flat line of the shore. Where the sweep of the
bare, gray cliff made a slight backward curve, the sea had washed
the shingle together to form a little beach covered with pebbles
from the largest to the smallest size. Here two rows of modest
wooden cabins were erected, which served as bathing houses, and
beside these, a great wooden structure on wheels, not unlike the
enormous house-caravans in which the owners of shows and menageries
and such-like wandering folk travel about from fair to fair.
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