Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/265

Rh thin, dry lips. Medallion, amused, yet with a hushed kind of feeling through all his nerves, pushed the Avocat’s tumbler till it touched his fingers. The thin fingers twined round it, and once more he came to his feet. He raised the glass. "To—" for a minute he got no further—"To the wedding-eve!" he said, and sipped the hot wine. Presently he pushed the little well-worn book over to Medallion. "I have known you fifteen years—read!" he said. He gave Medallion a meaning look out of his now flashing eyes.

Medallion’s bony face responded cordially. "Of course," he answered, picked up the book, and read what the Avocat had written. It was on the last page. When he had finished reading, he held the book musingly. His whim had suddenly taken on a new colour. The Avocat, who had been walking up and down the room, with the quick step of a young man, stopped before him, took the book from him, turned to the first page, and handed it back silently. Medallion read:

Quebec, September 13th, 18–. It is one year since. I shall learn to laugh some day.

Medallion looked up at him. The old man threw back his head, spread out the last page in the book which he had just written, and said defiantly, as though expecting contradiction to his self-deception—"I have learned."

Then he laughed, but the laugh was dry and hollow and painful. It suddenly passed from his wrinkled lips, and he sat down again; but now with an air as of shyness and shame. "Let us talk," he said, "of—of the Code Napoleon."

The next morning Medallion visited St. Jean in the hills. Five years before he had sold to a new-comer