“Riches.”
He smiled, sadly enough, as she took a faded purse and engulfed the gold.
“It was Judith’s gift to me,” he said, “a marriage present. Poor little Judith, if she but knew its fate! To what ends love falls.”
“I should have loved your sister.”
“Ah, she is soul of your soul, little wife.”
They passed on together into a more populous highway, where the flood of life ran strong and eager. White faces flickered by them, gay, heavy, or morose. The tide of toil gushed past on every hand, bearing the galleys of misery or greed. The painted moths of passion fluttered from darkened byways to jig and glitter in the glow of the many lamps. Opulence rolled on in sable and white. From many a street penury and despair rushed like noisome water from some thundering mill.
The man and the woman passed from the highway into a quiet square where bare trees and the turrets of an antique inn rose against the colorless sky. A garden lay shadowy under the bleak and arid walls. There was even a suggestion of solemnity in the silence of the place, with the muffled roar of toil flooding from the distance. Joan’s arm rested in Gabriel’s. The warm dusk of the great square was welcome after the turmoil of the streets.
“What a city is this,” said the girl, looking up into the man’s face. “At first I thought that it would stifle me with its dust and din. Think of Domremy and its woods and waters. I often say to myself, ‘How can these people have souls?’ From my heart I pity the poor.”
“Are we not among them?”
“Struggling against fate.”