The Judge could feel his friend’s arm tremble with emotion, and he said: “Come, now, my Plato, what is it? A man has come to disturb the peace of Jean Jacques, our philosophe, eh?”
“That is it, monsieur—a man of a kind.”
“Oh, of course, my bambino, of course, a man ‘of a kind,’ or there would be no peace disturbed. You want to tell me, I see. Proceed then; there is no reason why you should not. I am secret. I have seen much. I have no prejudices. As you will, however; but I can see it would relieve your mind to tell me. In truth I felt there was something when I saw you look at her first, when you spoke to her, when she talked with me. She is a fine figure of a woman, and Jean Jacques, as you say, is much away from home. In fact he neglects her—is it not so?”
“He means it not, but it is so. His life is full of—”
“Yes, yes, of stores and ash-factories and debtors and lightning-rods and lime-kilns, and mortgaged farms, and the price of wheat—but certainly, I understand it all, my Fille. She is too much alone, and if she has travelled by the compass all these thirteen years without losing the track, it is something to the credit of human nature.”
“Ah, monsieur, a vow before the good God—!” The Judge interrupted sharply. “Tut, tut—these vows! Do you not know that a vow may be a thing that ruins past redemption? A vow is sacred. Well, a poor mortal in one moment of weakness breaks it. Then there is a sense of awful shame of being lost, of never being able to put right the breaking of the vow, though the rest can be put right by sorrow and repentance! I would have no vows. They haunt like ghosts when they are broken, they torture like fire then. Don’t talk to me of vows. It is not vows that keep the world right, but the prayer of a man’s soul from day to day.”
The Judge’s words sounded almost blasphemous to M. Fille. A vow not keep the world right! Then why the vows of the Church at baptism, at confirmation, at marriage? Why the vows of the priests, of the nuns, of those who had given themselves to eternal service? Monsieur had spoken terrible things. And yet he had said at the last: “It is not vows that keep the world right, but the prayer of a man’s soul from day to day.” That was not heretical, or atheistic, or blasphemous. It sounded logical and true and good.
He was about to say that, to some people, vows were the only way of keeping them to their duty—and especially women—but the Judge added gently: “I would not for the world hurt your sensibilities, my little Clerk, and we are not nearly so far apart as you think at the minute. Thank God, I keep the faith that is behind all faith—the speech of a man’s soul with God.... But there, if you can, let us hear what man it is who disturbs the home of the philosopher. It is not my Fille, that’s sure.”
He could not resist teasing, this judge who had a mind of the most rare uprightness; and he was not always sorry when his teasing hurt; for, to his mind, men should be lashed into strength, when they drooped over the tasks of life; and what so sharp a lash as ridicule or satire!
“Proceed, my friend,” he urged brusquely, not waiting for the gasp of pained surprise of the little Clerk to end. He was glad to see the figure beside him presently straighten itself, as though to be braced for a task of difficulty. Indignation and resentment were good things to stiffen a man’s back.