PAUL OR GEORGE?
At the end of this long talk every one rose. Monsieur and Madame Dalize,
with Monsieur Roger and Albert, walked towards the chateau. Paul
Solange, silent and motionless, followed them with his eyes. When
Monsieur Roger reached the step, he turned and made a friendly gesture
to Paul, who responded by a bow. His eyes, in resting on Monsieur Roger,
had an affectionate, softened, and respectful look. Miette saw it, and
was struck by it. She approached, passed her arm in Paul's, and said,
softly,--
"You love him very much,--Monsieur Roger?"
"Yes," answered Paul, with surprise.
"You love him very, very much?"
"Yes."
"And he too loves you very well. I can see that. But do you love him as
much as if he----?"
And Miette paused, embarrassed a little, feeling that what she was going
to say was very important; still, being certain that she was right, she
continued:
"As much as if he was--your papa?"
Paul started.
"Yes; you love him as much and perhaps--perhaps more," she cried, seeing
Paul start.
"Why do you say things like that to me?" murmured Paul, much moved.
"Because--nothing."
"Why do you think that I love Monsieur Roger in the manner that you have
just said?"
"Because----"
"Because what?"
"Well, because I look at my papa just as I see you looking at Monsieur
Roger."
Paul tried to hide his embarrassment, and replied,--
"You are foolish."
Then he looked up at Miette, who shook her head and smiled, as if to
say that she was not foolish. An idea came to him.
"Miette," said he, softly, "I am going to ask you something."
"Ask it."
"But you will tell it to no one?"
"To no one."
"Well, do you know why Monsieur Roger, at the fire at the farm, called
me--called me George?"
"Why, certainly, I know."
"You know?" cried Paul.
"Yes: he called you George because he thought suddenly that his child,
his little George, whom he lost in a fire,--in a fire on shipboard----"
Paul Solange listened, opening his eyes very wide.
"Ah, that is true. You don't know anything about it. You were not here
when Monsieur Roger told us this terrible thing."
"No, I was not here; but you were here, Miette. Well, speak--tell me all
about it."
Then Miette repeated to Paul Monsieur Roger's story; she told him about
the departure of Monsieur Roger, his wife, and their little George for
America, their voyage on the ship, then the fire at sea. She told about
the grief, the almost insane grief, which Monsieur Roger had felt when
he saw himself separated from his wife and his son, who had been taken
off in a boat, while he remained upon the steamer. Then she told Paul of
the despair of Monsieur Roger when he saw that boat disappear and
bear down with it to a watery grave those whom he loved.
[Illustration]
"At that moment," continued Miette, "Monsieur Roger told us that he
cried out 'George! George!' with a voice so loud, so terrified, that
certainly his little boy must have heard."
Miette stopped.
"Why, what is the matter, Paul?" she cried: "are you sick?"
For Paul Solange had suddenly become so pale that Miette was scared.
"Not at all," said he; "not at all; but finish your story."
"It is finished."
"How?"
"Poor Monsieur Roger has never again seen his wife or his little
George--or at least he saw his wife, whose body had been cast up by the
waves, but the body of the little boy remained at the bottom of the
sea."
After a silence, Miette added,--
"You now understand how it is that the fire at the farm recalled to him
at once the fire on the ship, and why, in his grief, in his fright to
see you in so great a danger, he thought of his little boy, and cried
'George!' You understand, don't you?"
Paul remained an instant without answering; then, very gravely, with a
pale face and wide open eyes, he said,--
"I understand."
Paul Solange did not sleep the night which followed the day on which he
learned all these things. His brain was full of strange thoughts. He was
calling up shadowy confused recollections. He sought to go back as far
as possible to the first years of his childhood, but his memory was at
fault. He suddenly found a dark corner where everything disappeared; he
could go no farther; but now that he knew Monsieur Roger's story, he was
certain, absolutely certain that he had answered to the name of George
in the fire at the farm. It was that name, that name only, which had
suddenly shaken off his torpor and given him the strength to awake; it
was that name that had saved him. Feverishly searching in his memory, he
said to himself that this name he had heard formerly pronounced with the
same loud and terrified voice in some crisis, which must have been very
terrible, but which he could not recall; and then, hesitating anxiously,
feeling that he was making a fool of himself, he asked himself if it was
during the fire on shipboard, of which Miette had spoken, that he had
heard this name of George; and little by little, in the silence of the
night, this conviction entered and fixed itself in his mind. Then he
turned his thoughts upon the way that Monsieur Roger had treated him.
Whence this sudden and great affection which Monsieur Roger had shown
him? Why that sympathy which he knew to be profound and whose cause he
could not explain, as he did not merit it a bit more than his friend
Albert? Why had Monsieur Roger so bravely risked his life to save him?
Why had his emotion been so great? Lastly, why this cry of "George?"
And Paul Solange arrived at this logical conclusion,--
"If Monsieur Roger loves me so much; if he gave me, at the terrible
moment when I came near dying, the name of his son, it must be because I
recalled to him his son; it must be because I resemble his little
George. And what then?"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]