which was in your heart that I will pay for with the days
left to me.'"

A flickering smile brightened the sensitive ascetic face, and humour was
in the eyes. "What do you think Virginie said to that? Her sister told
me. Virginie said to that, 'You will have more days left, Jean Jacques,
if you have a better cook. What do you like best for supper?' And Jean
Jacques laughed much at that. Years ago he would have made a speech at
it!"

"Then he is no more a philosopher?"

"Oh always, always, but in his heart, and not with his tongue. I cried,
and so did he, when we met and when we parted. I think I am getting old,
for indeed I could not help it: yet there was peace in his eyes--peace."

"His eyes used to rustle so."

"Rustle--that is the word. Now, that is what, he has learned in
life--the way to peace. When I left him, it was with Virginie close
beside him, and when I said to him, 'Will you come back to us one day,
Jean Jacques?' he said, 'But no, Fille, my friend; it is too far. I see
it--it is a million miles away--too great a journey to go with the feet,
but with the soul I will visit it. The soul is a great traveller. I see
it always--the clouds and the burnings and the pitfalls gone--out
of sight--in memory as it was when I was a child. Well, there it is,
everything has changed, except the child-memory. I have had, and I have
had not; and there it is. I am not the same man--but yes, in my love
just the same, with all the rest--' He did not go on, so I said, 'If not
the same, then what are you, Jean Jacques?'"

"Ah, Fille, in the old days he would have said that he was a
philosopher"--said his sister interrupting. "Yes, yes, one knows--he
said it often enough and had need enough to say it. Well, said he to me,
'Me, I am a'--then he stopped, shook his head, and so I could scarcely
hear him, murmured, 'Me--I am a man who has been a long journey with a
pack on his back, and has got home again.' Then he took Virginie's hand
in his."

The old man's fingers touched the corner of his eye as though to find
something there; then continued. "'Ah, a pedlar!' said I to him, to hear
what he would answer. 'Follies to sell for sous of wisdom,' he answered.
Then he put his arm around Virginie, and she gave him his pipe."

"I wish M. Carcasson knew," the little grey lady remarked.

"But of course he knows," said the Clerk of the Court, with his face
turned to the sunset.

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