'And,' he added, 'I embrace the opportunity with all the more alacrity, having just lost 100,000 francs in a gold mine in the United States, a loss which makes an ugly hole in my savings. Thank Heaven I am young, full of life and energy, and in less than two years I shall have forgotten the thing altogether and replaced the money.'
Madame Proquet was aghast at the news.
'So, then,' she ejaculated, 'Henri speculates! He has lost everything, and that in a gold mine, a hole in the earth, which, instead of yielding money, swallows up what fools fling into it. After that, how is it possible to feel any security about him? With all his talent, his genius, he will end in the poor-house. He talks of expatriating himself now. He is out of his mind.'
She believed in none but sure investments, and saw no difference between speculation and gambling. Land, house-property and Government securities, no other stock had any value in her eyes. She would not for the world have had anything to do with shares in even the great railways of her own country. However, in the end she calmed herself.
'He will be prudent in the future,' she said to herself, 'and the lesson will be a wholesome one. After all, England is not far from Brittany. I shall see the dear children almost as often as before.'
And seeing Fanchette looking at her, she smiled, but the smile did not deceive the good woman, who saw clearly that something was being hidden from her, and that that something concerned Henri. Her eyes filled.
'It is nothing, my dear Fanchette!' said Madame Proquet, making her faithful servant sit down by her side while she read to her Henri's letter, and discussed with her its contents.
The painter remained three years in England, and returned to Paris after having made the conquest of the English public and the Royal Academy, just as he had made the conquest of the French public and the Salon.
Mayfair and Belgravia had been painted by Henri Proquet; Fifth Avenue, New York, now claimed him, and offered him fabulous prices. He set out for America, and passed two years there. Madame Proquet and Fanchette both begged him earnestly, in all their letters, to give up these voyages, and to return to Paris and settle there definitely. 'Have a little patience, mother dear,' he wrote; 'I shall soon have 1,000,000 francs put by, and then I shall think of nothing but your wishes.' A few months later he wrote: 'I shall soon have finished my work in America, and we shall set out from New York to make our longest and last voyage. We shall cross America to the Californian side: from there we shall visit Japan, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, and Australia. On the way home we shall stop at the Cape of Good Hope to sketch a few Zulus, who are said to be such fine people. We count on being back in Paris by the end of the year, and we will be with you on New Year's Day. What souvenirs of our travels you will have to listen to! What endless chats we will have, won't we?'
'Decidedly he is mad,' said Madame Proquet to herself. 'As if our French women were not far prettier than all those horrid black African creatures, or those hideous little dods of Japan!' Even Fanchette began to ask herself seriously whether, after all, her boy was the same, and not a changed person. Henri had no longer any one to take his part under his mother's roof.