Florian did not reply to this in words. But he smiled at his half-sister, for he was really fond of her, even now, and they understood each other excellently.
So he stayed silent, still looking at her. By and by he said: “You come out of a wood that is not often visited by abbots and cherubim, and you carry a sieve and shears. Who is yonder?”
Marie-Claire replied, “How should I know the real name of the adversary of all the gods of men?”
“Pardieu!” said Florian, “so it is company of such sinister grandeur that you entertain nowadays. You progress, my sister, toward a truly notable damnation.”
“In these parts, to be sure, they call him Janicot—”
“Yes, I know,” said Florian, “and, certainly, his local name does not matter in the least.” Florian smiled benevolently, and said, “Good luck to you, my dear!”
Then he rode on, into the pathway from which Marie-Claire had just emerged. He was interested, for it might well be rather amusing to overtake this whispered-about Janicot in the midst of his sombre work: but, even so, the thoughts of Florian were not wholly given over to Janicot, or to Marie-Claire either. Instead, he was still thinking of the sleeping woman’s face which he had not ever forgotten utterly: and this dark sullen sister of his—who had once been so pretty too, he recollected,—and all her injudicious traffic seemed, somehow, rather futile.
No, he reflected, Marie-Claire was not pretty now. Her neck remained wonderful: it was still the only woman’s neck familiar to Florian that really justified comparison with a swan’s neck by its unusual length and roundness and flexibility. But her head was too small for that superb neck: she had taken on the dusky pallor of a Puysange: she was, in fine, thirty-five, and looked rather older. It showed you what irregular and sorcerous living might lead to. Florian at thirty-five looked—at most, he estimated,—twenty-eight. Yes: it was much more sensible to adhere to precedent, and to keep all one’s accounts in order, through St. Hoprig’s loving care, and to retain overhead a thrifty balance in one’s favor.
