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Jean Jacques' admiration of the lion who could, and would, slay him was the best tribute to his own character. M. Fille's eyes moistened as he realized it; and he knew that nothing he could say or do would make this man accommodate his actions to the hard rules of the business of life; he must for ever be applying to them conceptions of a half-developed mind.
M. Fille's head dropped before the disdainful eyes of M. Carcasson. He who prided himself in keeping the court right on points of procedure, who was looked upon almost with the respect given the position of the Judge himself, that he should fail in thinking of the obvious thing was humiliating, and alas! so disconcerting. "I am a fool, an imbecile," he responded, in great dejection.
"What did I say, monsieur?" asked the Big Financier. "The mind that's received a blow must be moving moving; the man with the many irons must be flying from bellows to bellows!" "Come, come, there's no time to lose," came Jean Jacques' voice again, and the handle of the door of their room turned. M. Fille's hand caught the handle.
He squeezed M. Fille's arm and said: "I've been quick with my tongue myself, but I feel sure now, that it's through long and close association with my Clerk of the Court." "Ah, monsieur, you are so difficult to understand!" was the reply. "I have known you all these years, and yet " "And yet you did not know how much of the woman there was in me! . . . But yes, it is that.
Ever since Zoe's mother had vanished alone seven years before from the Manor Cartier, or rather from his office at Vilray, M. Fille had been as much like a maiden aunt or a very elder brother to the Spanische's daughter as a man could be. Of M. Fille's influence over his daughter and her love of his companionship, Jean Jacques had no jealousy whatever.
I've come to say to you that I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life as I do for you. I cried all night after your beautiful mill was burned down. You were coming to see me next day you remember what you said in M. Fille's office but of course you couldn't. Of course, there was no reason why you should come to see me really I've 'only got two hundred acres and the house.
This drew the attention of M. Fille, who raised his head reprovingly he could not get rid of the feeling that he was in court, and that a case was being tried; and the severity of a Judge is naught compared with the severity of a Clerk of the Court, particularly if he is small and unmarried, and has no one to beat him into manageable humanity. M. Fille's voice was almost querulous.
"Monsieur oh, monsieur, do not shut the door in the face of God like that!" said the shocked little master of the law. "Those two together it may be only for a moment." "Ah, no, my little owl, Jean Jacques will wind the boa-constrictor round his neck like a collar, all for love of those he has lost," answered the Judge with emotion; and he caught M. Fille's arm in the companionship of sorrow.
In spite of Fille's reproofs she insisted in calling him that to the servants. They had two servants now, thanks to the legacy left them by the late Judge Carcasson. Presently M. Fille took her by the hand. "Before we start one look yonder," he murmured, pointing towards the mill which had once belonged to Jean Jacques, now rebuilt and looking almost as of old.
Her face became flushed, her bosom showed agitation; she looked at him as she had done in Maitre Fille's office, and a wave of feeling passed over him now, as it did then, and he remembered, in response to her look, the thrill of his fingers in her palm. His face now flushed also, and he had an impulse to ask her to sit down beside him.
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