III. “My good friend,” said the Cure, “it is too late to mourn for those lost years. Nothing can give them back. As Parpon the dwarf said—you remember him, a wise little man, that Parpon—as he said one day, 'For everything you lose you get something, if only how to laugh at yourself.”’
Armand nodded thoughtfully and answered: “You are right—you and Parpon. But I cannot forgive myself; he was so fine a man: tall, with a grand look, and a tongue like a book. Yes, yes, I can laugh at myself—for a fool.”
He thrust his hands into his pockets, and tapped the ground nervously with his foot, shrugging his shoulders a little. The priest took off his hat and made the sacred gesture, his lips moving. Armand caught off his hat also, and said: “You pray—for him?”
“For the peace of a good man’s soul.”
“He did not confess; he had no rites of the Church; he had refused you many years.”
“My son, he had a confessor.”
Armand raised his eyebrows. “They told me of no one.”
“It was the Angel of Patience.”
They walked on again for a time without a word. At last the Cure said: “You will remain here?”
“I cannot tell. This ‘here’ is a small world, and the little life may fret me. Nor do I know what I have of this,”—he waved his hands towards the house,—“or of my father’s property. I may need to be a wanderer again.”