"Well, in one way this is Paradise," said Paul, lifting his eyes to the sky which showered sunset roses through silver branches of olives, gold branches of mimosas.
"Paradise with the serpent of deceit in it!" cried Suze. "The Nice lawyer says in his letter—I'm not sorry you let me open it—that Siegel drew up the deeds so cleverly it's almost impossible to convict him of swindling. Monsieur Vignal thinks no business man would lend money on the chance of what you might get back from your deposit with Siegel if you sued him for false pretenses. And yet, in the next sentence, Vignal advises you to stand up against Siegel trying to turn you out because you can't and won't and oughtn't to pay the rest. He says, 'hold on to the place if you possibly can, and make Siegel attack you in the courts, so you can have a chance of bringing out the real facts and perhaps proving that you're an injured man.' He thinks if you could stop here instead of submitting to be turned out, the courts would very likely decide 19 that you'd paid Siegel already as much as the business is worth, and the place would be accounted ours. Isn't that a mockery, when Monsieur Vignal knows as well as we do we haven't a penny to live on—that the Riviera's empty these war days, that nobody buys our plants, and you can't fill orders from over the Swiss or Italian frontiers, even if you could get half as many as Siegel's lying books showed?"
"Vignal means well," said the man. "It's good of him to advise me without asking for pay."
"No more than a Frenchman ought to do for a Belgian!" the woman retorted. "The refugees who ask for charity get all the sympathy. We, who ask only for work—"
"We have received kindness, too. Don't let's doubt God's goodness on the eve of Christmas—the day when He gave His only Son for us all, my Suze! . . . 'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.' Well, there's no evil in this day—or to-morrow. There sha'n't be. Let's trust; let's not stop hoping, for not to hope is death. You go to the children, dearest, now, and I'll slip around the back 20 way with this tree, so they sha'n't see it till it's lighted and decorated to-night——"
"Lighted and decorated!" Suze echoed, with a laugh that came trembling out of tears.
"Yes," insisted Paul, "trust me. Your husband isn't an artist for nothing! Come along. No more time for repining if the tree's to be ready before the children's bedtime. I tell you, it will be a great work!"
"You're the most wonderful man in the world!" breathed Suze senior. "And we adore you—our soldier who fights for us always. Oh, but listen! There's Paulette calling me. I told the two I'd be back before they finished their Christmas present for father. Guess what it is—but no, it wouldn't be fair to the poor little things. They're coming to look for me. If you go by the mimosa path you can get away before they see you."
Without a word, the man picked up the miniature pine-tree and, shouldering it, limped off almost at a run. At the same instant the 21 woman went down on her knees and began once more to drape the gray bagging over the flower-bed, as if nothing had happened to interrupt her task.
"Here I am, by the palm-grove. Come and help me cover the flowers!" she cried, almost cheerily, in answer to a child shouting "Maman! Maman!"