Jean nodded—he was not quite sure what his vocation was, but he foresaw no difficulty in keeping it.
Miss Prenderghast had been lying awake half the night, thinking how she should say good-bye to Jean. She said it very badly; he was all she had in the world, and she had never really had him. Jean made her a polite little speech in which he thanked her for all she had done for him, and Miss Prenderghast said, “Nonsense, somebody had to do it!” and “For goodness sake, boy, don’t gush; it’s not English.”
Jean hesitated for a moment, bowed, kissed her hand and left her. Then he ran into the kitchen and threw his arms around Elizabeth.
“For shame, Master Jean,” cried Elizabeth, with gratified horror. “You a great big man, how could you go for to do such a thing?”
“Oh, Elizabeth,” said Jean, and he was laughing and almost crying at the same time, “a man must kiss somebody, you know. You’ve been very good to me, Elizabeth!”
“There! there! Master Jean,” said Elizabeth, who was wholly crying. “You’ll take care of yourself, my lamb, now, won’t you? And don’t pay no attention to what nobody says to you in that there wicked Paris full of hussies and what not? You go your own way, Master Jean dear, and if you’re ever in want of anything you’ll write and tell me, won’t you? I know what young men and short commons is, and I’ve saved my wages for many a year a-purpose!”
“Oh, Elizabeth!” said Jean at last, “but you know a man can’t take money from a woman!”
“Can’t ’e though, my dear?” said Elizabeth grimly. “Then all I can say is ’e can take many other things which are a sight worse for ’im—for ’im and for ’er too, for the matter of that! Don’t you go muddlin’ yer ’ead with them notions, and oh! for ’eaven’s sake, Master Jean, don’t sit in yer wet feet or go short of your food!”
Elizabeth hadn’t any parting present to give Jean—but when he went out of the kitchen, he ran by a back way across the fields, because he did not want anyone just then to see his face, and Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table with her head on her arms, and refused to answer the bell to clear away the breakfast. She was the only person in St. Jouin who realized that Jean would never come back again—someone like him would return, no doubt, with his eyes and his voice, but the Jean D’Ucelles who ran across the wet, wind-blown fields that autumn morning would be a different person altogether.
On the railway station Jean found several of his class-mates from the Lycée, and among them Maurice Golaud, the young officer who was quartered at St. Jouin.