own on the ground at his
feet, and in an instant had handed up five dollars for one of the idols
of his own altar. Anyone else than M. Manotel, or perhaps M. Fille or
the New Cure, would have hesitated to take the five dollars, or, if they
had done so, would have handed it back; but they had souls to
understand this Jean Jacques, and they would not deny him his insistent
independence. And so, in a moment, he was making his way out of the
crowd with the cage in his hand, the bird silent now.

As he went, some one touched his arm and slipped a book into his hand.
It was M. Fille, and the book was his little compendium of philosophy
which his friend had retrieved from his bedroom in the early morning.

"You weren't going to forget it, Jean Jacques?" M. Fille said
reproachfully. "It is an old friend. It would not be happy with any one
else."

Jean Jacques looked M. Fille in the eyes. "Moi--je suis philosophe," he
said without any of the old insistence and pride and egotism, but as one
would make an affirmation or repeat a creed.

"Yes, yes, to be sure, always, as of old," answered M. Fille firmly;
for, from that formula might come strength, when it was most needed,
in a sense other and deeper far than it had been or was now. "You will
remember that you will always know where to find us--eh?" added the
little Clerk of the Court.

The going of Jean Jacques was inevitable; all persuasion had failed to
induce him to stay--even that of Virginie; and M. Fille now treated
it as though it was the beginning of a new career for Jean Jacques,
whatever that career might be. It might be he would come back some day,
but not to things as they were, not ever again, nor as the same man.

"You will move on with the world outside there," continued M. Fille,
"but we shall be turning on the same swivel here always; and whenever
you come--there, you understand. With us it is semper fidelis, always
the same."

Jean Jacques looked at M. Fille again as though to ask him a question,
but presently he shook his head in negation to his thought.

"Well, good-bye," he said cheerfully--"A la bonne heure!"

By that M. Fille knew that Jean Jacques did not wish for company as he
went--not even the company of his old friend who had loved the bright
whimsical emotional Zoe; who had hovered around his life like a
protecting spirit.

"A bi'tot," responded M. Fille, declining upon the homely patois.

But as Jean Jacques walked away with his little bo