For a moment the better nature of Maverick had been roused, and he turned a look of loathing upon the complacent Frenchman seated by him (which fortunately the stolid Papiol did not comprehend). For a moment, his thought ran back to a sunny hillside near to the old town of Arles, where lines of stunted, tawny olives crept down the fields,—where fig-trees showed their purple nodules of fruit,—where a bright-faced young peasant-girl, with a gay kerchief turbaned about her head with a coquettish tie, lay basking in the sunshine. He heard once more the trip of her voice warbling a Provençal song, while the great ruin of the Roman arène came once more to his vision, with its tufting shrubs and battered arches rising grim and gaunt into the soft Southern sky; the church-bells of the town poured their sweet jangle on his ear again, the murmur of distant voices came floating down the wind, and again the pretty Provençal song fluttered on the balmy air; the coquettish turban was in his eye, the plump, soft hand of the pretty Provençal girl in his grasp, and her glossy locks touched his burning cheek. So much, at least, that was Arcadian; and then (in his glowing memory still) the loves, the jealousies, the delusions, the concealments, the faithlessness, the desertion, the parting! And now,—now the chief actress in this drama that had touched him so nearly lay buried in a New England grave, with his own Adèle her solitary mourner!
"It was your friend the Doctor who gave the good woman absolution, I suppose," said Papiol, tapping his snuff-box, and gathering a huge pinch between thumb and finger.
"Not even that comfort, I suspect," said Maverick.
"Bah! pauvre femme!"
And the philosopher titillated his nostril until he sneezed again and again.
"And the Doctor," continued Papiol,—"does he suspect nothing?"
"Nothing. He has counselled me to make what amends I may by marrying—you know whom."
"Pardieu! he is a good innocent, that old friend of yours!"
"Better than you or I, Papiol."
"Cela va sans dire, mon ami. And la petite,—the little bright-eyes,—what of her?"