“I managed to buy these clothes in Belgium, and then I disappeared. Paul Brent died a year ago, and if they look for Tom Beckett, my friend, well—they will never find him. If necessary, I am a Frenchman who is a little touched in the head. I have forgotten things. All my people are lost or dead; that happened in some village—early in the war. I’m just Paul—a vagabond. If people ask too many questions I just smile and shrug my shoulders.”
“But—all that—will lead to nothing,” she said gravely; “a dog’s life. I think you had some other purpose in your mind—and you are hiding it from me.”
“I have shown you the vagabond, madame, and a vagabond has no rights, no claims upon anybody.”
“Mon ami,” she said, “many men would say that you were a fool to trust a woman. You shall not regret it. When I look at these ruins I feel that the lives of all of us will have to begin over again.”
X
Brent’s day had begun with Manon’s tears, and those tears of hers and the incident of the untouched treasure had produced in both of them an atmosphere of emotional candour. Brent’s confession had grown out of the emotion that the misfortunes of Manon Latour had roused in him, and the tale that he had told her made her glimpse him as a sort of lost child, a man who was better than his past. She believed that he had told her the truth. His plan to begin life over again was so naïve, so whimsical, and so sad, that it moved her pity and made her wonder whether something more significant than chance had not brought Brent to Beaucourt.
She saw that he was making ready to go. He had the restless air of a man who was girding his loins for the road and preparing to shoulder his bag. She felt that he was sad over it, and that he was not so greatly in love with the vagabond life of which he spoke so lightly. She thought that Brent had neither the eyes nor the mouth of a wanderer. She could fancy him loving a corner by the fire, a bit of garden to dig in, the smell of a stable, a glass of wine on a summer evening, someone to whom he could talk, someone who did not listen to him because he was a stranger. She did not forget the corner he had made for himself in the cellar. A man who collects cups and plates and lays a store of food has not the heart of an Ishmaelite.
The meal was over and they were sitting there in silence, very conscious of each other and of the elemental and simple needs that had made comrades of them for an hour. Brent was filling his pipe. He looked vaguely dejected, and she noticed this all the more because he was making a business of trading in cheerfulness. Brent was a bad salesman.
Manon pulled out a gold watch, a watch that she wore under her blouse like a locket.
“Eleven o’clock!”