He had a book in his hand, and he was looking abroad over the wide valley between the grey ridges of the Mountain of Barbentane and the little splintered peaks of the Alpilles. As on the landscape, great peace was upon the Professor.
But all suddenly, without noise of approach, Jean-aux-Choux stood before him—changed, indeed, from him who had been called "The Fool of the Three Henries." The fire of a strange passion glowed in his eye. His great figure was hollowed and ghastly. His regard seemed to burn like a torch that smokes. On the back of his huge hand the muscles stood out like whipcords. His arms, bare beneath his shepherd's cape, were burned to brick colour.
"Jean-aux-Choux!" cried the Professor, clapping his hands, "come and see my mother—how content she will be."
The ex-fool made a sign of negation.
"No, I cannot enter," he said; "there is a woman down in the valley there who would see Claire Agnew. She hath somewhat to say to her, which it concerns her greatly to know."
"Who is the woman?" demanded the Professor.
"I will vouch for her," said Jean-aux-Choux; "her name is nothing to you or to any man."
"But Claire Agnew's name and life concern me greatly," said the Professor hotly. "Had it been otherwise, I should even now have been in my class-room with my students at the Sorbonne!"
"In your grave more like—with Catherine and Guise and Henry of Valois!"
"Possibly," said the Professor tranquilly, "all the same I must know!"