e-covered
house, where Maitre Fille lived alone with his sister, a tiny edition of
himself, who whispered and smiled her way through life.

She smiled and whispered now in welcome to the Judge; and as she did so,
the three saw Jean Jacques, laughing, and cracking his whip, drive past
with his daughter beside him, chirruping to the horses; while, moody and
abstracted, his wife sat silent on the backseat of the red wagon.

CHAPTER VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY

Jean Jacques was in great good humour as he drove away to the Manor
Cartier. The day, which was not yet aged, had been satisfactory from
every point of view. He had impressed the Court, he had got a chance
to pose in the witness-box; he had been able to repeat in evidence
the numerous businesses in which he was engaged; had referred to his
acquaintance with the Lieutenant-Governor and a Cardinal; to his Grand
Tour (this had been hard to do in the cross-examination to which he was
subjected, but he had done it); and had been able to say at the very
start in reply as to what was his occupation--"Moi je suis M'sieu' Jean
Jacques, philosophe."

Also he had, during the day, collected a debt long since wiped off his
books; he had traded a poor horse for a good cow; he had bought all the
wheat of a Vilray farmer below market-price, because the poor fellow
needed ready money; he had issued an insurance policy; his wife and
daughter had conversed in the public streets with the great judge who
was the doyen of the provincial Bench; and his daughter had been kissed
by the same judge in the presence of at least a dozen people. He was, in
fact, very proud of his Carmen and his Carmencita, as he called the two
who sat in the red wagon sharing his glory--so proud that he did not
extol them to others; and he was quite sure they were both very proud of
him. The world saw what his prizes of life were, and there was no need
to praise or brag. Dignity and pride were both sustained by silence
and a wave of the hand, which in fact said to the world, "Look you, my
masters, they belong to Jean Jacques. Take heed."

There his domestic scheme practically ended. He was so busy that he took
his joys by snatches, in moments of suspension of actual life, as it
were. His real life was in the eddy of his many interests, in the field
of his superficial culture, in the eyes of the world. The worst of him
was on the surface. He showed what other men hid, that was all. Their
vanity