Part 20 (1/2)
”Jean?” repeated Father Anton, startled. ”Jean?” He looked at her closely. Could it be that? And then, with a little gasp, as he seemed to read the truth in her eyes: ”It--it is Jean then, Marie-Louise, who has brought you to Paris?”
”Yes,” she answered, in a low voice.
The cure's face grew very grave.
”You have heard from him?”
She shook her head.
”I have never heard from Jean since the day he left Bernay-sur-Mer”--she was plucking with her fingers at the skirt of the priest's _soutane_.
There was a long silence, broken at last by the old priest's deep sigh.
”You still love Jean, my child?” he asked gently.
”I have always loved him,” she said simply.
Father Anton fumbled with his spectacles. His heart had grown very heavy. It seemed that the cruelest, saddest thing in the world had happened.
”Tell me about him!” she demanded eagerly. ”You see him every day, father.”
”I have not seen Jean in many months,” he replied sadly.
”Not seen him!” she echoed in consternation. ”But he is here--in Paris--isn't he?”
”Yes; he is here,” the cure said slowly. ”But Paris is a big place, and--and even old friends sometimes do not meet often.”
”But tell me about him!” she persisted. ”He has become a great man--a very great, great man?”
”Yes,” said Father Anton gravely, ”he has become a great man--the greatest perhaps in all of France.” Then suddenly, laying his hands on Marie-Louise's shoulders: ”Marie-Louise, what is in your heart? Why have you come here?”
”But I have told you, and you know,” she said. ”To see Jean.”
The cure's hands tightened upon her shoulders. What was he to say to her? How was he to tell her of the danger she in her innocence would never guess, that lay so cold and ominous a thing upon his own heart?
How was he to put into words his fear of Jean for this pure soul that was at his knees? As wide as the world was the distance that lay now between Marie-Louise and Jean--but it was not that, not even that Jean was openly attentive to Myrna Bliss--that was only a little thing.
Jean was not the Jean of Bernay-sur-Mer. The man was glutted now with power and wealth. And swaying him was not the love of art that might have lifted him to a loftier plane, it was the prost.i.tution of that divine, G.o.d-given genius for the l.u.s.t of fame. And for fame he had exchanged his soul. What was there sacred to Jean now? It was a life closely approximating that of a roue that Jean lived. And for Marie-Louise, with her love a weapon that might so easily be turned against her, to come in touch with--no, no; it was not to be thought of!
”Marie-Louise,” he said hoa.r.s.ely, ”you must go back. You do not understand. Jean is very different now--he is not the Jean--”
”I know,” she interposed, with a catch in her voice. ”I know--better than you think I know. It is you who do not understand. He is of the _grand monde_, I understand that; and I--I am what I am, and it must be always so. But I love him, father. Is it wrong that I should love him? I will never speak to him, and he shall never know that I am here; but I must see him, and see his work, and--and--oh, don't you understand?”
”And after that?” asked the old priest sorrowfully.
”What does it matter--after that?” she said tensely. ”I do not know.”
”No, Marie-Louise,” he said earnestly, ”no, my child, no good can come of it. You must go back to Bernay-sur-Mer.”
She drew away from him, staring at him a little wildly.
”But do you not understand?” she cried out with a sudden rush of pa.s.sion. ”But do you not understand that it is stronger than I--that I could not stay in Bernay-sur-Mer because I was always thinking, thinking--that I could not go back there now any more than I could stay there before? I must do this! I will do it! Nothing shall stop me!
And if you will not help me, then--”
Father Anton drew her gently back against his knees. Yes; he was beginning to understand--that the problem was not to be settled so easily as by the mere expedient of telling Marie-Louise she must go back to Bernay-sur-Mer. Those small clenched hands, those tight lips were eloquent of finality. It became simply a matter of accepting a fact. He might insist a dozen times that she should go. It would be useless. She would not go! The old priest's brows furrowed in anxiety. This love for Jean was still first in the girl's heart.