A tremor went through his shoulder as my hand fell on it. “Which is more pleasure for you and me, Zoëtique, to drive in a taxicab in New York, like to-night, or to be together en canot, like that?” I asked him.
The boy turned and shot at me a wild look, and with that he dropped into a chair by my writing-table and laid his head on his arms and sat motionless. I waited two or three minutes. Then I drew up a seat and sat down near him, and at the top of the rough head I fired my opening shot.
“I want you to go home, Zoëtique,” I said quietly. That brought him up staring.
“Mais, m’sieur—mais—c’est b’en impossible,” he stammered at me, startled.
So then I talked to him like a Dutch uncle, as a man of forty can talk to a lad of twenty-three. I told him, to begin with, that it was arranged with Mr. Esmond that he might go to-morrow if he would. I told him that while he was making money he was not saving any; that he was doing no good here, and was throwing away his life—and he agreed with pathetic readiness.
“One is not absolutely happy in this city, m’sieur,” he agreed. “One gets drunk every night, and it is not good for the health. At home I got drunk rarely, m’sieur—me—oh, but rarely. Perhaps at the fête de Noël, and when one finished logging in the spring—c’est tout. Not always as often—it is better for the health like that.”
It was not the psychological moment to lecture, but I put away a reflection or two at this point for Zoëtique’s later service.
“Yes, it is bad for the health, Zoëtique,” I answered with restraint. “It is bad for one in several ways. One is not so much of a man when one gets drunk. I’m glad you think with me that Canada is the place for you.”
There was deep silence. I felt distinctly the stone wall at which we had arrived, and I knew it must be taken down rock by rock. I knew that the question of the girl was coming.
“I cannot go, m’sieur.”