"She—who?" asked Jean, though he knew very well.
"Who—why Claire, of course," said the cousin of the Bearnais; "you do not suppose I came so far to see the little old woman in the blue pinafore, who walks nodding her head and rattling her keys? Or you, you great, thick-skulled oaf of Geneva, or the Sorbonnist with the bald head and the eyes that look and see nothing? What should a young man come so far for, and risk his life to see, if not a fair young girl? Answer me. What did John Calvin teach you as to that?"
"Only this," said Jean-aux-Choux solemnly; "'From the lust of the flesh, from the lust of the eye, from the pride of life, good Lord deliver me!'"
The young man looked up from his nail-polishing, sharply and keenly.
"Aye—so," he said. "Well—and did He?"
For a moment, but only for a moment, Jean-aux-Choux stood nonplussed. Then he found his answer, and this time it was John Stirling, armiger, scholar in divinity, who spoke.
"The God of John Calvin has delivered me from all thought of self in the matter of this maid, my master's daughter. What might have grown up in my heart, or even what may once have been in my heart, had I been aught but a battered masque of humanity, an offence to the beauty of God's creation—that is not your business, nor that of any man!"
The young fellow dropped his knife, and rising, clasped Jean-aux-Choux frankly about the neck.
"Jean—Jean—old friend," he cried, "wherefore should I hurt you? Why should you think it of me? Not for the world—you know that well. Forgive an idle word."
But Jean-aux-Choux was moved, and having the large heart, when once the waves tossed it, the calm returned but slowly.