Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/119

 the pungently pleasant smell of the blood-red sarrasin, when he paid visits to the sick who lived on the outskirts of his scattered parish. Campion became aware then of an increasing difficulty in discussing this matter impersonally, in the impartial manner becoming a guardian. Odd thrills of jealousy stirred within him when he was asked to contemplate Marie-Ursule's possible suitors. And yet, it was with a very genuine surprise, at least for the moment, that he met the Curé's sudden pressing home of a more personal contingency—he took this freedom of an old friend with a shrewd twinkle in his eye, which suggested that all along this had been chiefly in his mind. "Mon bon ami, why should you not marry her yourself? That would please all of us so much." And he insisted, with kindly insistence, on the propriety of the thing: dwelling on Campion's established position, their long habit of friendship, his own and his sister's confidence and esteem, taking for granted, with that sure insight which is the gift of many women and of most priests, that on the ground of affection alone the justification was too obvious to be pressed. And he finished with a smile, stopping to take a pinch of snuff with a sigh of relief—the relief of a man who has at least seasonably unburdened himself.

"Surely, mon ami, some such possibility must have been in your mind?"

Campion hesitated for a moment; then he proffered his hand, which the other warmly grasped. "You read me aright," he said slowly, "only I hardly realised it before. Even now—no, how can I believe it possible—that she should care for me. Non sum dignus, non sum dignus. Consider her youth, her inexperience; the best part of my life is behind me."

But the Curé smiled reassuringly. "The best part is before you, Campion; you have the heart of a boy. Do we not know