Gaspard sighed.
"But a man's work is his work," he averred.
"There you go again," said Susette, and the accusation was all the more damning in that it was spoken not in anger, but in grief. "Now that I've given myself to you—done all that you wished—you want to get rid of me; you want me to die."
"Haven't I told you a thousand times," cried Gaspard softly and passionately, "that I love you more than any man has ever loved any woman? Haven't I spent whole days and nights—yes, years—of my life desiring you? Haven't I proven it? Come into my arms, Susette. Ah, when I have you in my arms like this—"
"And it's only like this that I know happiness, my love," breathed the girl. "Yes; I'm jealous! Jealous of everything that can take you from me, body or spirit, if even for a moment. All women are like that. We live in jealousy. What's work? What's ambition, honor, duty, gold as compared with love?"
But late that night Gaspard the smith roused himself softly from his couch. He lay there leaning on his elbow and stared out of the window of his cottage. Susette stirred at his side, undisturbed by the metallic clinking. Otherwise the night was one of engulfing, mystical silence.
Just outside the cottage the great river Rhone flowed placid and free in the light of the young moon. Up from the river-bottoms ran the vine-clad slopes of Burgundy as fragrant as gardens. There was no wind. It was all swoon and mystery.
"Lord God!" cried Gaspard the smith in his heart.
It was a prayer as much as anything—an inspiration that he couldn't get otherwise into words.
He was of that race of artist-craftsmen whose forged iron and fretted steel would continue to stir all lovers of beauty for centuries to come.