The laughing child crooned and spluttered and shook its head, as though it was playing some happy game. It looked first at Norah, then at Jean Jacques, then at Norah again, and then, with a little gurgle of pleasure, stretched out its arms to her and half-raised itself from the pillow. With a glad cry Norah gathered it to her bosom, and triumph shone in her face.
"Ah, there, you see!" she said, as she lifted her face from the blossom at her breast.
"There it is," said Jean Jacques with shaking voice.
"You have nothing to give her—I have everything," she urged. "My rights are that I would die for the child—oh, fifty times! . . . What are you going to do, m'sieu'?"
Jean Jacques slowly turned and picked up his hat. He moved with the dignity of a hero who marches towards a wall to meet the bullets of a firing-squad.
"You are going?" Norah whispered, and in her eyes was a great relief and the light of victory. The golden link binding Nolan and herself was in her arms, over her heart.
Jean Jacques did not speak a word in reply, though his lips moved. She held out the little one to him for a good-bye, but he shook his head. If he did that—if he once held her in his arms—he would not be able to give her up. Gravely and solemnly, however, he stooped over and kissed the lips of the child lying against Norah's breast. As he did so, with a quick, mothering instinct Norah impulsively kissed his shaggy head, and her eyes filled with tears. She smiled too, and Jean Jacques saw how beautiful her teeth were—cruel no longer.
He moved away slowly. At the door he turned, and looked back at the two —a long, lingering look he gave. Then he faced away from them again.
"Moi je suis philosophe," he said gently, and opened the door and stepped out and away into the frozen world.