When this good priest was alive she felt she had a friend who was as
large of heart as he was just, and who would not scorn the fool according
to his folly, or chastise the erring after his deserts. In his greatness
of soul Pere Langon had shut his eyes to things that pained him more than
they shocked him, for he had seen life in its most various and
demoralized forms, and indeed had had his own temptations when he lived
in Belgium and France, before he had finally decided to become a priest.
He had protected Carmen with a quiet persistency since her first day in
the parish, and had had a saving influence over her. Pere Langon reproved
those who criticized her and even slandered her, for it was evident to
all that she would rather have men talk to her than women; and any summer
visitor who came to fish, gave her an attention never given even to the
youngest and brightest in the district; and the eyes of the habitant lass
can be very bright at twenty. Yet whatever Carmen's coquetry and her
sport with fire had been, her own emotions had never been really involved
till now.
The new cure, M. Savry, would have said they were involved now because
she never came to confession, and indeed, since the Old Cure died, she
had seldom gone to mass. Yet when, with accumulated reproof on his
tongue, M. Savry did come to the Manor Cartier, he felt the inherent
supremacy of beauty, not the less commanding because it had not the
refinement of the duchess or the margravine.
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