“You have despoiled your garden for my fiancée? Oh, how kind you are!” said Jean. As he embraced his uncle, he noticed that the old man’s eyes were full of tears.
“But why? They are your flowers. You should not have sacrificed them for me.”
With an affection that Jean had never known in him, M. Loigny put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and said gently to him:
“Yes, Jean, it was necessary. I am not crying for my roses, but for myself. They are not, they should never have been anything but a diversion instead of occupying all my time. Can you forgive me, Jean?”
“Forgive you?”
“Yes, I had positively forgotten life. I was afraid of its sorrows and troubles, and I took refuge in my garden. Many people commit the same cowardice, in another way. They are wrong, like me. Just now on the road, at the sight of your astonished face, I suddenly understood the harm I had done. For the sake of a rose, for a wicked autumn-flowering China rose, dark red turning to purple, I had lost sight of your happiness, your love, and my own duty. But all my flowers are there. When I came in I fell upon my rose bushes with this weapon.” He still had the pruning shears in his left hand, instrument of his atoning sacrifice.
Jean tried to interpose.
“But you loved flowers....”
“No, no,” said the old man. “Don’t attempt to make excuses for me. Your father and mother are dead, Jean. It was my business to replace them as well as I could. Everyone has his obligations. If it is not towards his family, it is towards his neighbor. While I was watering my plants, you were growing up in my house, and I never even noticed it I am only too happy to give you these roses for her whom you have chosen. My life is changed from now on. I have thought more in a few hours than during the last twenty years. In the future, Jean, count on me. I want to help your young household. I have spent my little fortune vainly on my rose-bushes instead of thinking of your welfare.”
“We won’t think about that,” broke in the young man, now overwhelmed with emotion.