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"It would be very awkward," he thought to himself, "were Jacques de Wissant to be taken ill, here, now, with me Ah, I have it!" Then he said aloud, "You have doubtless had nothing to eat since the morning?" And as de Wissant nodded "But that's absurd! It's always madness to go without food. Believe me, you will want all your strength during the next few days.
Jacques de Wissant uttered an inarticulate cry was it of horror or only of surprise? And yet, gifted for that once and that once only with a kind of second sight, he had known that it was the Neptune and Commander Dupré which lay eighteen fathoms deep on the floor of the sea. The old seaman, moved by the mayor's emotion, relaxed into a confidential undertone. "Poor Dupré!
The Admiral was a naval officer of the old school of the school who called their men "my children" and who detested the Republican form of government as being subversive of discipline. As Jacques de Wissant hurried up to him, he turned and stiffly saluted the Mayor of Falaise.
Dupré and his comrades have, it seems, thirty-six hours' supply of oxygen if, indeed, they are still living, which I feel tempted to hope they are not. You see, Monsieur de Wissant, I was at Bizerta when the Lutin sank. A man doesn't want to remember two such incidents in his career. One is quite bad enough!"
But she knew that she must do what he asked. Jacques de Wissant sat at his desk in the fine old room which is set aside for the mayor's sole use in the town hall of Falaise. He was waiting for Admiral de Saint Vilquier, whom he had summoned on the plea of a matter both private and urgent.
In addition to the messages of inquiry and condolence which went on pouring in, important members of the Government arrived from Paris and the provinces. There also came to Falaise the mother of Commander Dupré, and the father and brother of Lieutenant Paritot. De Wissant made the latter his special care.
Then, without warning, there came an hour nay, a moment, when in that twilight hour which the French call "'Twixt dog and wolf," the most torturing and shameful of human passions, jealousy, had taken possession of Jacques de Wissant, disintegrating, rather than shattering, the elaborate fabric of his House of Life, that house in which he had always dwelt so snugly and unquestioningly ensconced.
Every day for a week past it had been publicly announced that the following night would see the final scene of the dread drama, and each evening even last evening it had been as publicly announced that nothing could be done for the present. Jacques de Wissant had put all his trust in the Admiral and in the arrangements the Admiral was making to avoid discovery.
But this time it was not his clerk who wished to intercept the mayor on his way out to déjeuner; it was the chief of the employés in the telephone and telegraph department of the building, a forward, pushing young man whom Jacques de Wissant disliked. "M'sieur le maire?" and then he stopped short, daunted by the mayor's stern look of impatient fatigue. "Has m'sieur le maire heard the news?"
"I ask it for the honour, the repute, of the Service," muttered the old officer. "After all, M. de Wissant, the poor fellow did not mean much harm. We sailors have all, at different times of our lives, had some bonne amie whom we found it devilish hard to leave on shore!" The Admiral walked slowly towards the door. To-day had aged him years.
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