“It would be a grand world to live in,” Erik murmured, “if all its people were as simple and obliging as these fishermen.”
“They’re common folks.” There was a world of meaning in the girl’s words.
“Uncommon, I’d say, very uncommon indeed.”
“All a matter of point of view, I suppose.”
The fishermen had demanded no pay for their services, were loath in the end to accept it. They did not, however, depart unrewarded.
When, a half hour later, Florence burst into the apartment, she found Jeanne sitting before the window, looking out into the night. The trunk had been sent to a room where empty trunks were kept. The apartment was in apple pie order. Jeanne did not say, “Oh, my friend, such a terrible thing has happened! We have been searched again.” She said nothing at all; she just kept on looking out into the night.
The reason for this is apparent enough. The little French girl harbored a secret. This secret she had hidden even from her bosom pal. The secret had to do with that laundry bag still reposing in a cubicle back there in the small hotel near their own shabby rooms. The check boy was still custodian of her secret.
Why did Jeanne guard this secret so closely? Perhaps for no reason at all. Jeanne was at heart a gypsy. A gypsy has a reason for doing a thing if he chooses. A mere impulse is reason enough for him. Life for him is action, not thought. He dances, he sings, he plays the violin. He travels where he will. If you say to him, “Why?” he shrugs his shoulders. Jeanne was like that.
But to Jeanne, as on other nights long after Florence was asleep, there came, as she sat there before the window, strange fantastic pictures of the past and visions of the future. Of these she wondered as in a dream.
Clouds had come drifting in from the west. They filled the sky. From time to time a powerful radio beacon, swinging in its orbit, appeared to paint pictures on those clouds. In Jeanne’s fanciful vision these pictures took on fantastic forms.