Jean was inspecting the figure in a curiously abstracted way, as though he had never seen it before, turning his head now to this side, now to that, and turning the clay around and around in his hands to examine it from all angles, while a heightened colour crept into his face and dyed his cheeks. It was a small figure, hardly a foot and a half in height—the figure of a fisherwoman, barefooted, in short skirts, the clothes as though windswept clinging close around her limbs, her arms stretched out as to the sea. He laughed a little unnaturally.
"Well, then, since it will not do for Ninon Lachance, and you like it, Marie-Louise," he said a little self-consciously; "it is for you."
"For me—Jean? Really for me?" she asked happily.
"And why not?" said Jean. "Since it is you."
"Me!"—she looked at him in a prettily bewildered way.
"But, yes," said Jean, holding the figure off at arm's length. "See, it is a beacon—the welcome of the fisherman home from the sea. And are you not that, Marie-Louise, and will you not stand on the shore at evening and hold out your arms for me as I pull home in the boat? Are you not the beacon, Marie-Louise—for me?"
Her hand stole over one of his and pressed it, but it was a moment before she spoke.
"I will pray to the bon Dieu to make me that, Jean—always," she said softly.
He drew her close to him.
"It is the luck of Jean Laparde!" he whispered tenderly.