Page:The Teeth of the Tiger - Leblanc - 1914.djvu/506

 Luis applies the whole of his wonderful mind to the business.

In addition to this, in addition to his old books on ethics and philosophy, to which he has returned with such pleasure, he cultivates his garden. He dotes on his flowers. He is proud of them. He takes prizes at the shows; and the success is still remembered of the treble carnation, streaked red and yellow, which he exhibited as the "Arsène carnation."

But he works hardest at certain large flowers that blossom in summer. During July and the first half of August they fill two thirds of his lawn and all the borders of his kitchen-garden. Beautiful, decorative plants, standing erect like flag-staffs, they proudly raise their spiky heads of all colours: blue, violet, mauve, pink, white.

They are lupins and include every variety: Cruikshank's lupin, the two-coloured lupin, the scented lupin, and the last to appear, Lupin's lupin. They are all there, resplendent, in serried ranks like an army of soldiers, each striving to outstrip the others and to hold up the thickest and gaudiest spike to the sun. They are all there; and, at the entrance to the walk that leads to their motley beds, is a streamer with this device, taken from an exquisite sonnet of José Maria de Heredia:

""And in my kitchen-garden lupins grow.""

You will say that this is a confession. But why not?

In the evening, when a few privileged neighbours meet at his house—the justice of the peace, the notary, Major Comte d'Astrignac, who has also gone to live at Saint-Maclou—Don Luis is not afraid to speak of Arsène Lupin.