As he went, some one touched his arm and slipped a book into his hand. It was M. Fille, and the book was his little compendium of philosophy which his friend had retrieved from his bedroom in the early morning.
“You weren’t going to forget it, Jean Jacques?” M. Fille said reproachfully. “It is an old friend. It would not be happy with any one else.”
Jean Jacques looked M. Fille in the eyes. “Moi—je suis philosophe,” he said without any of the old insistence and pride and egotism, but as one would make an affirmation or repeat a creed.
“Yes, yes, to be sure, always, as of old,” answered M. Fille firmly; for, from that formula might come strength, when it was most needed, in a sense other and deeper far than it had been or was now. “You will remember that you will always know where to find us—eh?” added the little Clerk of the Court.
The going of Jean Jacques was inevitable; all persuasion had failed to induce him to stay—even that of Virginie; and M. Fille now treated it as though it was the beginning of a new career for Jean Jacques, whatever that career might be. It might be he would come back some day, but not to things as they were, not ever again, nor as the same man.
“You will move on with the world outside there,” continued M. Fille, “but we shall be turning on the same swivel here always; and whenever you come—there, you understand. With us it is semper fidelis, always the same.”
Jean Jacques looked at M. Fille again as though to ask him a question, but presently he shook his head in negation to his thought.
“Well, good-bye,” he said cheerfully—“A la bonne heure!”
By that M. Fille knew that Jean Jacques did not wish for company as he went—not even the company of his old friend who had loved the bright whimsical emotional Zoe; who had hovered around his life like a protecting spirit.
“A bi’tot,” responded M. Fille, declining upon the homely patois.