That evening she had a long talk in the kitchen with Phineas. The news of Doggie’s safety had been given out by Willoughby, without any details. Mo Shendish had leaped about her like a fox-terrier, and she had laughed, with difficulty restraining her tears. But to Phineas alone she told her whole story. He listened in bewilderment. And the greater the bewilderment, the worse his crude translations of English into French. She wound up a long, eager speech by saying:
“He has done this for me. Why?”
“Love,” replied Phineas bluntly.
“It is more than love,” said Jeanne, thinking of the Wonderful Spiritual Something.
“If you could understand English,” said Phineas, “I would enter into the metaphysics of the subject with pleasure, but in French it is beyond me.”
Jeanne smiled, and turned to the matter-of-fact.
“He will go to England now that he is wounded?”
“He’s on the way now,” said Phineas.
“Has he many friends there? I ask, because he talks so little of himself. He is so modest.”
“Oh, many friends. You see, mademoiselle,” said Phineas, with a view to setting her mind at rest, “Doggie’s an important person in his part of the country. He was brought up in luxury. I know, because I lived with him as his tutor for seven years. His father and mother are dead, and he could go on living in luxury now, if he liked.”