Part 7 (1/2)

”Alice,” I cried, ”you think----”

”Precisely, my friend.”

She rose swiftly, crossed the room, and before I knew it slipped back of my chair, put both arms about my neck, kissed me, and burst into tears.

”There, there, _mon pauvre pet.i.t_,” she whispered. ”Forgive me--I was angry--we are not so stupid as all that--eh? We are not like the stupid _bourgeoisie_.”

”But it is not I----” I stammered.

She caught her breath in surprise, straightened, and slowly retraced her steps to her vacant chair.

”Ah! So it is that?” she said slowly, drawing her chair close to my own.

Then she seated herself, rested her chin in her hands, and regarded me for some moments intently.

”So you have come for--for him?” she resumed, her breast heaving. ”I am right, am I not?”

”He loves you,” I declared. ”Do you think I am blind as to your love for him? You who came to greet me to-night out of your suffering?”

For some moments she was silent, her fingers pressed over her eyes.

”Do you love him?” I insisted.

”No, no,” she moaned. ”It is impossible.”

”Do you know,” I continued, ”that he has not slept or hunted or smoked for a week before he was forced to go to Paris? Can you realize what he suffers now during days of exhausting rehearsals? He came to me a wreck,” I said. ”You have been cruel and you have----”

Again she had become deathly pale. Then at length she rose slowly, lifted her head proudly, and led the way back to the library fire.

”You must go,” she said. ”It is late.”

When the little boy of the fisherman, Jean Tranchard, was not to be found playing with the other barelegged tots in the mud of the village alleys, or wandering alone on the marsh, often dangerously near the sweep of the incoming tide, one could be quite sure he was safe with Tanrade. Frequently, too, when the maker of ballets was locked in his domain and his servant had strict orders to admit no one--neither Monsieur le Cure nor the mayor, nor so intimate a comrade as myself--during such hours as these the little boy was generally beside the composer, his chubby toes scarcely reaching to the rungs of the chair beside Tanrade's working desk.

Though the little boy was barely seven he was a st.u.r.dy little chap with fair curly hair, blue eyes, and the quick gestures of his father. He had a way of throwing out his chest when he was pleased, and gesticulating with open arms and closed fists when excited, which is peculiar to the race of fishermen. The only time when he was perfectly still was when Tanrade worked in silence. He would then often sit beside him for hours waiting until the composer dropped his pen, swung round in his chair to the keyboard at his elbow, and while the piano rang with melody the little boy's eyes danced. He forgot during such moments of ecstasy that his father was either out at sea with his nets or back in the village good-naturedly drunk, or that his mother, whom he vaguely remembered, was dead.

Tanrade was a so much better father to him than his own that the rest of his wretched little existence did not count. When the father was fis.h.i.+ng, the little boy cared for himself. He knew how to heat the pot and make the soup when there was any to make. He knew where to dig for clams and sputtering crabs. It was the bread that bothered him most--it cost two sous. It was Tanrade who discovered and softened these hard details.

The house in which the fisherman and the little boy live is tucked away in an angle of the walled lane leading out to the marsh. This stone house of Tranchard's takes up as little room as possible, since its front dare not encroach upon the lane and its back is hunched up apologetically against the angle of the wall. The house has but two compartments--the loft above stored with old nets and broken oars, and the living room beneath, whose dirt floor dampens the feet of an oak cupboard, a greasy table, a chair with a broken leg, and a mahogany bed.

Over the soot-blackened chimney-piece is a painted figure of the Virgin, and a frigate in a bottle.

Monsieur le Cure had been watching all night beside the mahogany bed.

Now and then he slipped his hand in the breast of his soutane of rusty black, drew out a steel watch, felt under a patchwork-quilt for a small feverish wrist, counted its feeble pulse, and filling a pewter spoon with a mixture of aconite, awakened the little boy who gazed at him with hollow eyes sunken above cheeks of dull crimson.

In the corner, his back propped against the cupboard, his bare feet tucked under him, dozed Tranchard. There was not much else he could do, for he was soaked to the skin and half drunk. Occasionally he s.h.i.+fted his feet, awakened, and dimly remembered the little boy was worse; that this news had been hailed to him by the skipper of the mackerel smack, _La Belle elise_, and that he had hauled in his empty nets and come home.

As the gray light of dawn crept into the room, the little boy again grew restless. He opened the hollow eyes and saw dimly the black figure of the cure.