Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/60

44 never in a temper, and every one always knows she means what she says, and she says it as even as a clock." Then the egoist in him added: "I have power and imagination and the faculty for great things; but Madelinette has serene judgment—a tribute to you. Curé, who taught her in the old days."

"In any case, Tardif is going," she repeated quietly.

"What did he do?" said the Seigneur. "What was your grievance, beautiful Madame?"

He was looking at her with unfeigned admiration—with just such a look as was in his face the first day they met in the Avocat's house on his arrival in Pontiac. She turned and saw it, and remembered. The scene flashed before her mind. The thought of herself then, with the flush of a sunrise love suddenly rising in her heart, roused a torrent of feeling now, and it required every bit of strength she had to prevent her bursting into a passion of tears. In imagination she saw him there, a straight, slim, handsome figure with the very vanity of proud health upon him, and ambition and passionate purpose in every line of his figure, every glance of his eyes. Now — there he was, bent, frail, and thin, with restless eyes and deep discontent in voice and manner; the curved shoulder and the head grown suddenly old; the only thing, speaking of the past, the graceful hand, filled with the illusory courage of a declining vitality. But for the nervous force in him, the latent vitality which renewed with stubborn persistence the failing forces, he was dead. The brain kept commanding the body back to life and manhood daily.

"What did Tardif do?" the Seigneur again questioned, holding out a hand to her.

She did not dare to take his hand lest her feelings