“You ask me-ah! I see you look at me, M’sieu’ le Notaire, you look at me like a leetla dev’. You t’ink I come for somet’ing else”—his black eyes flashed under his brow, he shook his head, and his hands clinched—“You ask me why I come back? I come back because there is one thing I care for mos’ in all de worl’. You t’ink I am happy to go about with a damn brown bear and dance trough de village? Moi?—no, no, no! What a Jack I look when I sing—ah, that fool’s song all down de street! I come back for one thing only, M’sieu’ Shangois.
“You know that night—ah, four, five years ago? You remember, M’sieu’ Shangois? Ah! she was so beautiful, so sweet; her hair it fall down about her face, her eyes all black, her cheeks like the snow, her lips, her lips!—You rememb’ her father curse me, tell me to go. Why? Because I have kill a man! Eh bien, what if I kill a man! He would have kill me: I do it to save myself. I say I am not guilty; but her father say I am a sc’undrel, and turn me out de house.
“De girl, Christine, she love me. Yes, she love Vanne Castine. She say to me, ‘I will go with you. Go anywhere, and I will go!’
“It is night and it is all dark. I wait at de place, an’ she come. We start to walk to Montreal. Ah! dat night, it is like fire in my heart. Well, a great storm come down, and we have to come back. We come to your house here, light a fire, and sit just in de spot where I am, one hour, two hour, three hour. Saprie, how I love her! She is in me like fire, like de wind and de sea. Well, I am happy like no other man. I sit here and look at her, and t’ink of to-morrow-for ever. She look at me; oh, de love of God, she look at me! So I kneel down on de floor here beside her and say, ‘Who shall take you from me, Christine, my leetla Christine?’
“She look at me and say: ‘Who shall take you from me, my big Vanne?’
“All at once the door open, and—”
“And a little black notary take her from you,” said Shangois, dryly, and with a touch of malice also. “You, yes, you lawyer dev’, you take her from me! You say to her it is wicked. You tell her how her father will weep and her mother’s heart will break. You tell her how she will be ashame’, and a curse will fall on her. Then she begin to cry, for she is afraid. Ah, where is de wrong? I love her; I would go to marry her—but no, what is that to you! She turn on me and say, ‘I will go back to my father.’ And she go back. After that I try to see her; but she will not see me. Then I go away, and I am gone five years; yes.”
Shangois came over, and with his thin beautiful hand (for despite the ill-kept finger nails, it was the one fine feature of his body-long, shapely, artistic) tapped Castine’s knee.
“I did right to save Christine. She hates you now. If she had gone with you that night, do you suppose she would have been happy as your wife? No, she is not for Vanne Castine.”
Suddenly Shangois’s manner changed; he laid his hand upon the other’s shoulder.