Page:The world set free.djvu/229

 "Over!"

"Finished."

"But then, Monsieur—what is to become—of me?"

Barnet turned his face westward, whither the white road led.

"Where else, for example, may I hope to find—opportunity?"

Barnet made no reply.

"Perhaps on the Riviera. Or at some such place as Homburg. Or some plague perhaps."

"All that," said Barnet, accepting for the first time facts that had lain evident in his mind for weeks; "all that must be over, too."

There was a pause. Then the voice beside him broke out. "But, Monsieur, it is impossible! It leaves—nothing."

"No. Not very much."

"One cannot suddenly begin to grow potatoes!"

"It would be good if Monsieur could bring himself—"

"To the life of a peasant! And my wifeYou do not know the distinguished delicacy of my wife, a refined helplessness, a peculiar dependent charm. Like some slender tropical creeper—with great white flowers But all this is foolish talk. It is impossible that Paris, which