Part 15 (1/2)

”That is the obvious deduction, Maitre Fille,” replied the Judge.

The Clerk of the Court seemed moved. ”He did not treat her ill. I know that he would take her back to-morrow if he could. He has never forgotten. I saw him weeping one day--it was where she used to sing to the flax-beaters by the Beau Cheval. I put my hand on his shoulder, and said, 'I know, I comprehend; but be a philosopher, Jean Jacques.'”

”What did he say?” asked the Judge.

”He drew himself up. 'In my mind, in my soul, I am philosopher always,'

he said, 'but my eyes are the windows of my heart, m'sieu'. They look out and see the sorrow of one I loved. It is for her sorrow that I weep, not for my own. I have my child, I have money; the world says to me, ”How goes it, my friend?” I have a home--a home; but where is she, and what does the world say to her?'”

The Judge shook his head sadly. ”I used to think I knew life, but I come to the belief in the end that I know nothing. Who could have guessed that he would have spoken like that!”

”He forgave her, monsieur.”

The Judge nodded mournfully. ”Yes, yes, but I used to think it is such men who forgive one day and kill the next. You never can tell where they will explode, philosophy or no philosophy.”

The Judge was right. After all the years that had pa.s.sed since his wife had left him, Jean Jacques did explode. It was the night of his birthday party at which was present the Man from Outside. It was in the hour when he first saw what the Clerk of the Court had seen some time before--the understanding between Zoe and Gerard Fynes. It had never occurred to him that there was any danger. Zoe had been so indifferent to the young men of St. Saviour's and beyond, had always been so much his friend and the friend of those much older than himself, like Judge Carca.s.son and M.

Fille, that he had not yet thought of her electing to go and leave him alone.

To leave him alone! To be left alone--it had never become a possibility to his mind. It did not break upon him with its full force all at once.

He first got the glimmer of it, then the glimmer grew to a glow, and the glow to a great red light, in which his brain became drunk, and all his philosophy was burned up like wood-shavings in a fiery furnace.

”Did you like it so much?” Zoe had asked when her song was finished, and the Man from Outside had replied, ”Ah, but splendid, splendid! It got into every corner of every one of us.”

”Into the senses--why not into the heart? Songs are meant for the heart,” said Zoe.

”Yes, yes, certainly,” was the young man's reply, ”but it depends upon the song whether it touches the heart more than the senses. Won't you sing that perfect thing, 'La Claire Fontaine'?” he added, with eyes as bright as pa.s.sion and the hectic fires of his lung-trouble could make them.

She nodded and was about to sing, for she loved the song, and it had been ringing in her head all day; but at that point M. Fille rose, and with his gla.s.s raised high--for at that moment Seraphe Corniche and another carried round native wine and cider to the company--he said:

”To Monsieur Jean Jacques Barbille, and his fifty years, good health--bonne sante! This is his birthday. To a hundred years for Jean Jacques!”

Instantly everyone was up with gla.s.s raised, and Zoe ran and threw her arms round her father's neck. ”Kiss me before you drink,” she said.

With a touch almost solemn in its tenderness Jean Jacques drew her head to his shoulder and kissed her hair, then her forehead. ”My blessed one--my angel,” he whispered; but there was a look in his eyes which only M. Fille had seen there before. It was the look which had been in his eyes at the flax-beaters' place by the river.

”Sing--father, you must sing,” said Zoe, and motioned to the fiddler.

”Sing It's Fifty Years,” she cried eagerly. They all repeated her request, and he could but obey.

Jean Jacques' voice was rather rough, but he had some fine resonant notes in it, and presently, with eyes fastened on the distance, and with free gesture and much expression, he sang the first verse of the haunting ballad of the man who had reached his fifty years:

”Wherefore these flowers?

This fete for me?

Ah, no, it is not fifty years, Since in my eyes the light you see First shone upon life's joys and tears!

How fast the heedless days have flown Too late to wail the misspent hours, To mourn the vanished friends I've known, To kneel beside love's ruined bowers.

Ah, have I then seen fifty years, With all their joys and hopes and fears!”

Through all the verses he ranged, his voice improving with each phrase, growing more resonant, till at last it rang out with a ragged richness which went home to the hearts of all. He was possessed. All at once he was conscious that the beginning of the end of things was come for him; and that now, at fifty, in no sphere had he absolutely ”arrived,”

neither in home nor fortune, nor--but yes, there was one sphere of success; there was his fatherhood. There was his daughter, his wonderful Zoe. He drew his eyes from the distance, and saw that her ardent look was not towards him, but towards one whom she had known but a few weeks.