"Good Lord Jesus, have pity on us," Marie, his wife, was saying, joining her poor white invalid's hands. "How has this happened, Lord? For really he has drunk but little! Oh, sir, prevent him," she begged, turning to me. "What will people say in Toulven when he passes, when they see that my husband will not stay with me!"
It was a fact that Yves had drunk very little; happiness, no doubt, had turned his head at dinner, and, what made the matter worse, we had taken him for a walk in the heat of the sun: it was not altogether his fault.
Sometimes, though rarely, it was possible to arrest these moods of his by dint of kindness. I knew that, but I did not feel able to-day to use this means. For really, it was too bad of him! Even here, in this place of peace and on this happy day of festival, to introduce a scene of this kind!
I said simply:
"Yves shall not leave!"
And to bar his way, I stood before the door, buttressing myself against the old oak mullions which were massive and solid.
He did not dare to answer me. He moved this way and that, continuing to look for his sailor's clothes, turning about like a wild beast which is held captive. He muttered under his breath that nothing would prevent him from going, as soon as he should have found his sailor's bonnet. But all the same the idea that he would have to touch me before he could get out served also to restrain him.
I, too, was in no very amiable mood, and I felt nothing now of the affection which had lasted so many years and forgiven so many things. I saw before me the drunken sea-rover, ungrateful and in revolt, and that was all.
Deep down in every man there is always a hidden savage who keeps vigil—especially perhaps amongst us who have lived on the sea. And it was the savage in each of us who now confronted one another, who had just come into collision one with the other, as in our worst days in the past.
Outside, all round us, was still the peace of the countryside, the shade of the oaks, the tranquil green night.