The Belovéd Traitor

by Frank L. Packard

"Nevertheless, it is true!" he asserted forcibly, "You do not know me; but those who do could tell you that I am qualified to speak. And I tell you that it is true. I tell you that in Paris fame, wealth, the greatest name in France awaits you! You are through to-day with this life forever, my boy, if you will come with me to Paris."

Fame, wealth, the greatest name in France! Jean felt the blood leave his face. His brain seemed to whirl and to be afire. Yes, those were the words, and the man was not playing with him; but it was some wild hallucination, some bizarre mistake. To-day, to be through with the hard, penniless life of a fisherman forever—and to work hereafter only with what before had been his play! No, that was not true—it could not be true. He meant well, this man, the father of the girl whose eyes seemed to burn into his now and insist too that it was true, but the little statue had been too easily done to be anything more than perhaps a pretty little thing. Fame, a great name—that strange stirring of his soul again! God, why had this man aroused that thought within him, when it was not, could not be true?

"Monsieur," he said, and his voice in its hoarseness sounded strangely in his own ears; "monsieur, has made a mistake. It cannot be so."

"Think so!" returned Henry Bliss bluntly. "I do not make mistakes of that kind, my boy. But I will convince you. In a few days you will see. I have telegraphed for some of the famous critics of France, men of the Academy, men whose names are known all over Europe, and they will tell you what I have told you—and their despair that it is I, not they, who have discovered you will be so pitifully genuine that even you will understand. And to-morrow we will motor to Marseilles and get some modelling clay for you, and you will see for yourself what you can do with that. And then, Jean, you will go to Paris with me—and work."

"If it were true, if it should be true," said Jean numbly, "still I could not go. One does not make sous enough at the fishing to go to Paris."

"But, great heavens!" ejaculated Henry Bliss. "That is precisely what I am offering you, young man—money. I am rich. I will pay every expense. I will establish you."

Jean shook his head.

"I could not do that—take your money," he said simply.

"Couldn't take it!" exploded the American earnestly—and then he laughed—and then grew serious once more. "Listen, my boy! I do not want you to think for a moment that this is a purely charitable little scheme on my part—far from it! It is most of it, I am afraid, utter selfishness. I love art—for many years I have devoted myself to it. I cannot create myself—God knows the miserable attempts and the miserable failures that have been mine!—and so I have tried to help others to do what I could not do myself"—Henry Bliss was smiling now in a kindly, wistful way. "And now to discover the greatest sculptor of the age, to bring him out of obscurity into fame and power—can you not see, Jean, how selfish I am? And so why do you stand there hesitating?"

Into Myrna's face, for the girl had risen and was now standing beside them, into the man's face so close to his, Jean stared—and then his eyes swept about him, over his surroundings. It was magnificent, but it was not reality—for here was the beach, and here was the boat, and in the boat were his nets, and there was the nick in the handle of the oar where he had fended off that night from the Perigeau Reef, and out there, surf-splashed, was the reef itself, and his clothes were the same rough, coarse clothes that he always wore just like every other fisherman in Bernay-sur-Mer. It was magnificent, but it was not reality—and yet his heart was pounding with mighty hammer beats, and the blood was surging fiercely through his veins.