“And leave our little philosopher—miller also alone?” remarked the Judge quizzically, yet with solemnity. M. Fille was agitated; he made a protesting gesture. “Jean Jacques can find comfort, but the child—ah, no, it is too terrible! Someone should speak. I tried to do it—to Madame Carmen, to Jean Jacques; but it was no use. How could I betray her to him, how could I tell her that I knew her shame!”
The Judge turned brusquely and caught his friend by the shoulders, fastening him with the eyes which had made many a witness forget to lie.
“If you were an avocat in practice I would ruin your reputation, Fille,” he said. “A fool would tell Jean Jacques, or speak to the woman, and spoil all; for women go mad when they are in danger, and they do the impossible things. But did it not occur to you that the one person to have in a quiet room with the doors shut, with the light of the sun in his face, with the book of the law open on your desk and the damages to be got by an injured husband, in a Catholic province with a Catholic Judge, written down on a piece of paper, to hand over at the right moment—did it not strike you that that person was your George Masson?”
M. Fille’s head dropped before the disdainful eyes of M. Carcasson. He who prided himself in keeping the court right on points of procedure, who was looked upon almost with the respect given the position of the Judge himself, that he should fail in thinking of the obvious thing was humiliating, and alas! so disconcerting.
“I am a fool, an imbecile,” he responded, in great dejection.
“This much must be said, my imbecile, that every man some time or other makes just such a fool of his intelligence,” was the soft reply.
A thin hand made a gesture of dissent. “Not you, monsieur. Never!”
“If it is any comfort to you, know then, my Solon, that I have done so publicly in my time, while you have only done it privately. But let us see. That Masson must be struck of a heap. What sort of a man is he to look at? Apart from his morals, what class of creature is he?”
“He is a man of strength, of force in his way, monsieur. He made himself from an apprentice without a cent, and he has now thirty men at work.”
“Then he does not drink or gamble?”