It was not easy for Jean to explain to Maurice about his vocation now, but Maurice was, after all, only another man, and Jean was not a coward.
“This is not the kind of life I have been living,” he began lamely. “You see, Maurice, I am bound to say so, I don’t like the—the ways of Paris.”
“No?” said Maurice cheerfully. “Well, that is a pity! Still, if you have been leading a dull life and not mixing with clever people like ourselves—one understands. We must alter all that, you know; I’ll talk to Liane about it. Au revoir, Jean.”
The rain had stopped, and for the first time Jean discovered a charm in the streets of Paris. There was something mysterious and beautiful in the air to-night. The faces of the women in the crowd seemed as fresh as summer flowers, the lights along the Seine wound their way into the heart of the city like a string of fallen stars.
Jean held his head up as he walked; he felt an indefinable sense of youth and vigour in his veins.
He noticed that one or two of the women as he passed looked at him; and he no longer felt like a ghost.
After dinner he went back to his rooms, but he could not stay there. He was dissatisfied with himself and he did not want to think. He went to the window and looked out. It was ten o’clock; if he was going to early Mass to-morrow as usual, he had better go to bed.
La Fin de l’Amour was on at the Odéon. Jean had never been to the Odéon, but he knew where it was. If he went at once he would be in time to see Liane in the last act.
After all, he had decided nothing, he had taken no vows. How wrong it was of the old Confessor not to let him join the Third Order! If he were living under rule now—then for one moment Jean faced his own soul and would not lie to himself. “If I were living under rule now,” he said beneath his breath, “I should break the rule.” After that he thought no more about the higher life.
“Bon!” said the concierge’s wife, as she saw him swing off down the street. “One knows very well when they begin to walk like that what has happened to them; but that will not make him better off; one must be careful now about the rent,” and she sighed. She was really at heart rather sad to lose her little saint; her husband, she knew, would triumph over her.