The Beloved Traitor (Mystery Classic). Frank L. Packard

then—so sure then. Oh, Jean, you must be very good to me to-day. It—it was so hard"—the dark eyes were swimming now with tears—"to say good-bye to Uncle Gaston. Perhaps it is that that is making me feel so strangely. But sometimes it seems as though it could never be, the great happiness for you and me, it is so great to think about that—that it frightens me. And I have wanted to talk to you about it, Jean, often and often. Does it make you very glad and happy, too, to think of just you and me together here, and our home, and the fishing, and—and years and years of it?"

      "But, yes; of course!" smiled Jean; and, picking up the clay again, began to scrape at it with his knife.

      "But are you sure, Jean?"—there was a little tremor in her voice. "I do not mean so much that you are sure you love me, but that you are sure you would always be happy to stay here in Bernay-sur-Mer. You are not like the other men."

      "How not like them?" Jean demanded, surveying in an absorbed sort of way the little clay figure that was taking on rough outline now. "How not like them?"

      "Well—that!"—Marie-Louise pointed at the clay in his hands. "That, for one thing—that you are always playing with, that it seems you cannot put aside for an instant, even though I asked you to a moment ago. You are always making the poupées, and if not the poupées with mud and dirt, then you must waste the inside of Mother Fregeau's loaves that she bakes herself, or steal the dough before it reaches the oven to keep your fingers busy making little faces and droll things out of it."

      Jean looked up to stare at Marie-Louise a little perplexedly.

      "Mais, zut!" he exclaimed. "And what of that! And if I amuse myself that way, what of that? It is nothing!"

      "Nevertheless," Marie-Louise insisted, nodding her head earnestly, "it is true what I have said—that you are not like the other men in Bernay-sur-Mer. Do you think that I have not watched you, Jean? And have you not said little things to show that you grow tired of the fishing?"

      "But that is true of everybody," Jean protested. "Does not Father Anton say that all the world is poor because there is none in it who is contented? And if I grumble sometimes, do not all the others do the same? Pierre Lachance will swear to you twice every hour that the fishing is a dog's life."

      She shook her head.

      "It is different," she said. "You are not Pierre Lachance, Jean, and I want you to be happy all your life—that is what I ask the bon Dieu for always in my prayers. And I do not know why these thoughts come, and I do not understand them, only I know that they are there."

      "Then—voilà! We will drive them away, and they must never come back!" Jean burst out, half gaily, half gravely. "See, now, Marie-Louise"—he caught her hand in both of his, putting aside the lump of clay again—"it is true that sometimes I am like that, and I do not understand either; but one must take things as they are, is that not so?"

      She nodded—a little doubtfully.

      "Well, then," cried Jean, "why should I not be happy here? Have I not you, and is that not most of all? And as for the rest, do I not do well with the fishing? Is there any who does better? Do they not speak of the luck of Jean Laparde? 'Cré nom! Different from the others! Who is a fisherman if it is not I, who have been a fisherman all my life? And of what good is it to wish for anything else? What else, even if I wanted to, could I do? I do not know anything else but the boats and the nets. Is it not so, Marie-Louise?"

      "Y-yes," she said, and her eyes lifted to meet his.

      "And happy!" he went on. "Ah, Marie-Louise, with those bright eyes of yours that belong all to me, who could be anything but happy? Tiens! You are to be my little wife, and Bernay-sur-Mer and the blue water is to be our home, and we will fish together, and you shall sing all day in the boat, and—well, what more is there to ask for?"

      "Oh, Jean!"—she was smiling now.

      "There, you see!" said Jean, and burst out laughing. "Marie-Louise is herself again, and—pouf!—the blue devils are blown away. And now wait until I have finished this, and I will show you something"—he picked up the clay once more. "Only you must not look until it is done."

      "Mustn't I? Oh!"—with a little moue of resignation. "Well, then, hurry, Jean," she commanded, and cupped her chin in her hands again, her elbows propped upon the ground.

      It was playfully that Jean turned his back upon her, hiding his work, but as his fingers began again to draw and model the clay and his knife to chisel it, the smile went slowly from his face and his lips grew firmly closed. It was strange that Marie-Louise should have known! It was true, the fishing grew irksome too often now; for those moods, like the mood in the storm, came very often, much more often than they had been wont to do. He had laughed at her, but that was only to pretend, to chase the sadness away and make her eyes shine again. It was true, too, as he had told her, that one must take things as they were. Whether he wanted to fish or not, he must fish—voilà! How else could one make the sous with which to live?

      Oh, yes, he had laughed to make her laugh; but now, pardieu! it was bringing that mood upon himself. Where was that great city and that great square, and what was that great statue before which the people stood rapt and spellbound, and why should it come so often to his thoughts and be so real as though it were a very truth and not some queer imagination of his brain? There were wonderful things in the face of that bronze figure. He leaned a little forward toward the clay before him, his lips half parted now, his fingers seeming to tingle with a life, throbbing, palpitant, that was all their own, that was apart from him entirely, for they possessed a power of movement and a purpose that he had nothing to do with. He became absorbed in his work, lost in it. Time passed.

      "Jean," Marie-Louise called out, "let me see it now."

      "Wait!" he said almost harshly. "Wait! Wait! Wait!"

      "Jean!"—it was a hurt little cry.

      He did not hear her. There was something at the base of that statue of his dreams that always troubled him, that the people always pointed at as they gazed; but he had never been able to make out what it was there at the base of the statue. It was very strange that he was never able to see that, when he could see the figure of the woman with the wonderful face so plainly!

      He worked on and on. There were neither hours nor minutes—the afternoon deepened. There was no creek, no Marie-Louise, no Bernay-sur-Mer, nothing—only those dreams and the little clay figure in his hands.

      And then Marie-Louise, her face a little white, timidly touched his arm.

      "Jean!" she said hesitantly.

      Her voice roused him. It seemed as though he was awakened from a sleep. He brushed the hair back from his eyes, and looked around.

      "Mon Dieu," he said, "but that was, strange!" And then he smiled, still a little dazed, and lifted around the clay figure for her to see. "I do not know if it is finished," he said, staring at it; "but perhaps I could do no better with it even if I worked longer."

      Marie-Louise's eyes, puzzled, anxious, on Jean's face, shifted to the little clay figure—and their expression changed instantly.

      "But, Jean!" she cried, clasping her hands. "But, Jean, that is not a poupée you have made there. It—it will never do at all! Ninon Lachance would break the arms off at the first minute, and it is too charmante for that. Oh, but, Jean, it—it is adorable!"

      Jean was inspecting the figure in a curiously abstracted way, as though he had never seen it before, turning his head now to this side, now to that, and turning the clay around and around in his hands to examine it from all angles, while a heightened colour crept into his face and dyed his cheeks. It was a small figure, hardly a foot and a half in height—the figure of a fisherwoman, barefooted, in short skirts, the clothes as though windswept clinging close around her limbs, her arms stretched out as to the sea. He laughed a little unnaturally.

      "Well, then, since it will not do for Ninon Lachance, and you like it, Marie-Louise," he said a little self-consciously; "it is for you."

      "For