George Waldeaux took his mother and boy back to the old homestead in Delaware. They arrived at night, and early the next morning he rowed away in his bateau to some of his old haunts in the woods on the bay, and was seen no more that day.
"He is inconsolable!" his mother told some of her old neighbors who crowded to welcome her. "His heart is in that grave in Vannes."The women listened in surprise, for Frances was not in the habit of exploiting her emotions in words.
"We understood," said one of them, with a sympathetic shake of the head, "that it was a pure love match. Mrs.
George Waldeaux, we heard, was a French artist of remarkable beauty?"Frances moved uneasily. "I never thought her--but Ican't discuss Lisa!" She was silent a moment. "But as for her social position"--she drew herself up stiffly, fixing cold defiant eyes on her questioner--"as for her social position," she went on resolutely, "she was descended on one side from an excellent American family, and on the other from one of the noblest houses in Europe."When they were gone she hugged little Jacques passionately as he lay on her lap. "That is settled for you!" she said.
When George came back in the evening, he found her walking with the boy in her arms on the broad piazzas.
"I really think he knows that he has come home, George!"she exclaimed. "See how he laughs! And he liked the dogs and horses just as Lisa thought he would. I am glad it is such a beautiful home for him. Look at that slope to the bay! There is no nobler park in England! And the house is as big as most of their palaces, and much more comfortable!""Give the child to Colette, mother, and listen to me.
Now that I have settled you and him here, I must go and earn your living.""Yes."
She followed him into the hall.
"I leave you to-morrow. There is no time to be lost.""You are going back to art, George?"
"No! Never!"
Frances grew pale. She thought she had torn open his gaping wound.
"I did not mean to remind you of--of----"
"No, it isn't that!"
He scowled at the fire. Art meant for him his own countless daubs, and the sickening smell of oily paints and musk, and soiled silk tea gowns, and the whole slovenly, disreputable scramble of Bohemian life in Paris.
"I loathe art!" he said, with a furious blow at the smouldering log in the fireplace, as if he struck these things all down into the ashes with it.
"Will you go back into the Church, dear?" his mother ventured timidly.
"Most certainly, no!" he said vehemently. "Of all mean frauds the perfunctory priest is the meanest. If Icould be like one of the old holy gospellers--then indeed!"He was silent a moment, and then began to stride up and down the long hall, his head thrown back, his chest inflated.
"I have a message for the world, mother."
"I am sure of it," she interrupted eagerly.
"But I must deliver it in my own way. I have lost two years. I am going to put in big strokes of work now. In the next two years I intend to take my proper place in my own country. I will find standing room for George Waldeaux," with a complacent smile. "And in the meantime, of course, I must make money enough to support you and the boy handsomely. So you see, mother," he ended, laughing, "I have no time to lose.""No, George!" It was the proudest moment of her life.
How heroic and generous he was!
