He was going to say, “If Carmen came back,” for his mind was moving in past scenes; but he stopped short and looked around helplessly. Then presently, as though by an effort, he added with a bravura note in his voice:
“The world has been full of trouble for a long time, but there have always been men to say to trouble, ‘I am master, I have the mind to get above it all.’ Well, I am one of them.”
There was no note of vanity or bombast in his voice as he said this, and in his eyes that new underglow deepened and shone. Perhaps in this instant he saw more of his future than he would speak of to anyone on earth. Perhaps prevision was given him, and it was as the Big Financier had said to Maitre Fille, that his philosophy was now, at the last, to be of use to him. When his wife had betrayed him, and his wife and child had left him, he had said, “Moi je suis philosophe!” but he was a man of wealth in those days, and money soothes hurts of that kind in rare degree. Would he still say, whatever was yet to come, that he was a philosopher?
“Well, I’ve done what I thought would help you, and I can’t say more than that,” Virginie remarked with a sigh, and there was despondency in her eyes. Her face became flushed, her bosom showed agitation; she looked at him as she had done in Maitre Fille’s office, and a wave of feeling passed over him now, as it did then, and he remembered, in response to her look, the thrill of his fingers in her palm. His face now flushed also, and he had an impulse to ask her to sit down beside him. He put it away from him, however, for the present, at any rate-who could tell what to-morrow might bring forth!—and then he held out his hand to her. His voice shook a little when he spoke; but it cleared, and began to ring, before he had said a dozen words.
“I’ll never forget what you’ve said and done this morning, Virginie Poucette,” he declared; “and if I break the back of the trouble that’s in my way, and come out cock o’ the walk again”—the gold Cock of Beaugard in the ruins near and the clarion of the bantam of his barnyard were in his mind and ears—“it’ll be partly because of you. I hug that thought to me.”
“I could do a good deal more than that,” she ventured, with a tremulous voice, and then she took her warm hand from his nervous grasp, and turned sharply into the path which led back towards the Manor. She did not turn around, and she walked quickly away.
There was confusion in her eyes and in her mind. It would take some time to make the confusion into order, and she was now hot, now cold, in all her frame, when at last she climbed into her wagon.
This physical unrest imparted itself to all she did that day. First her horses were driven almost at a gallop; then they were held down to a slow walk; then they were stopped altogether, and she sat in the shade of the trees on the road to her home, pondering—whispering to herself and pondering.
As her horses were at a standstill she saw a wagon approaching. Instantly she touched her pair with the whip, and moved on. Before the approaching wagon came alongside, she knew from the grey and the darkbrown horses who was driving them, and she made a strong effort for composure. She succeeded indifferently, but her friend, Mere Langlois, did not notice this fact as her wagon drew near. There was excitement in Mere Langlois’ face.
“There’s been a shindy at the ‘Red Eagle’ tavern,” she said. “That father-in-law of M’sieu’ Jean Jacques and Rocque Valescure, the landlord, they got at each other’s throats. Dolores hit Valescure on the head with a bottle.”