There was a moon that night. She had the air of sailing fast out to sea like an enchanted ship, for light clouds were blowing inland at a great rate, giving her all the effect of nimble motion. And after her, in a lake of blue, swam Jupiter, following like a pinnace.
"What a night!" exclaimed Laurent, standing at the mouth of the cave. "Aymar, go to bed!"
"Why should I?" demanded his friend, who was sitting there also. "Why should I, too, not enjoy this spectacle? And I was thinking."
Laurent removed his gaze from the heavens.
"Thinking, for one thing," went on Aymar reflectively, "what a fool I was not to have told you all this earlier. It is always a mistake to be a coward, Laurent. But I could not bring myself to it. I could not tell the story in a word or two without producing a false impression either one way or the other, and . . . well, you see that in giving the necessary details I have told you things about myself that I never thought to tell any one in the world. . . . Yet I hated taking all you did for me at Arbelles, and accepting your championship, when you did not know the truth. Day after day I said to myself that to-morrow—and then Guitton put an end to to-morrows."
"Not to speak of the fact," commented Laurent, "that at Arbelles you were never within a mile of being fit to embark on that story. Nor at La Baussaine either, if it comes to that."
"On the contrary, I nearly told you when we were sitting under the pear tree. But this was too recent," he looked down at his bandaged arm, "and you had taken it so ridiculously to heart. It would have given me an unfair advantage."
"Oh, Aymar, you really are——" "sans tache, like your motto," was on Laurent's lips, but he did not say it aloud.
"No," said L'Oiseleur, looking up with a smile, "in this case I was not really a fool, as I suppose you were going to call me. You were too émotionné that afternoon to be capable of judging anything dispassionately. You admitted as much this morning."
"Perhaps so," replied Laurent, who had in fact made a clean breast of everything. "But I was certainly not going to call you a fool just now. I should never dare! Have you any idea, L'Oiseleur, how unapproachable you can make yourself when you wish?"