At first he had thought that
Carmen was playing his accompaniment badly on the guitar, but she had
sharply protested against that, and had appealed to M. Fille, who was
present at the pretty festivity. He had told the truth, as a Clerk of the
Court should. He said that Jean Jacques' voice was not as he had so often
heard it; but he would also frankly admit that he did not think madame
played the song as he had heard her play it aforetime, and that covered
indeed twelve years or more--in fact, since the birth of the renowned
Zoe.
M. Fille had wondered much that night of June at the listless manner and
listless playing of Carmen Barbille. For a woman of such spirit and fire
it would seem as though she must be in ill-health to play like that. Yet
when he looked at her he saw only the comeliness of a woman whom the life
of the haut habitant had not destroyed or, indeed, dimmed. Her skin was
smooth, she had no wrinkles, and her neck was a pillar of softly moulded
white flesh, around which a man might well string unset jewels, if he had
them; for the tint and purity of her skin would be a better setting than
platinum or fine gold. But the Clerk of the Court was really
unsophisticated, or he would have seen that Carmen played the guitar
badly because she was not interested in Jean Jacques' singing. He would
have known that she had come to that stage in her married life when the
tenure is pitifully insecure.
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