Like many another man Jean Jacques
was the occasional slave of formula, and also the victim of phases of his
own temperament. In truth he had not realized how big a thing M. Mornay
had done for him. He had accepted the chance given him as the tribute to
his own courage and enterprise and integrity, and as though it was to the
advantage of his greatest creditor to give him another start; though in
reality it had made no difference to the Big Financier, who knew his man
and, with wide-open eyes, did what he had done.
Virginie was not subtle. She did not understand, was never satisfied with
allusions, and she had no gift for catching the drift of things. She
could endure no peradventure in her conversation. She wanted plain
speaking and to be literally sure.
"Are you going to take it?" she asked abruptly.
He could not bear to be checked in his course. He waved a hand and smiled
at her. Then his eyes seemed to travel away into the distance, the look
of the dreamer in them; but behind all was that strange, ruddy underglow
of revelation which kept emerging from shadows, retreating and emerging,
yet always there now, in much or in little, since the burning of the
mill.
"I've lent a good deal of money without security in my time," he
reflected, "but the only people who ever paid me back were a deaf and
dumb man and a flyaway--a woman that was tired of selling herself, and
started straight and right with the money I lent her.
Pages:
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261