ok out into the night, say, "All's
well, thank the good God," and would go to bed, very often forgetting to
kiss Carmen, and even forgetting his darling little Zoe.

After all, a mind has to be very big and to have very many tentacles to
hold so many things all at once, and also to remember to do the right
thing at the right moment every time. He would even forget to ask Carmen
to play on the guitar, which in the first days of their married life
was the recreation of every evening. Seldom with the later years had he
asked her to sing, because he was so busy; and somehow his ear had not
that keenness of sound once belonging to it. There was a time when he
himself was wont to sing, when he taught his little Zoe the tunes of
the Chansons Canadiennes; but even that had dropped away, except at rare
intervals, when he would sing Le Petit Roger Bontemps, with Petite Fleur
de Bois, and a dozen others; but most he would sing--indeed there was
never a sing-song in the Manor Cartier but he would burst forth with A
la Claire Fontaine and its haunting refrain:

"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai."

But this very summer, when he had sung it on the birthday of the little
Zoe, his voice had seemed out of tune. At first he had thought that
Carmen was playing his accompaniment badly on the guitar, but she had
sharply protested against that, and had appealed to M. Fille, who was
present at the pretty festivity. He had told the truth, as a Clerk of
the Court should. He said that Jean Jacques' voice was not as he had so
often heard it; but he would also frankly admit that he did not think
madame played the song as he had heard her play it aforetime, and that
covered indeed twelve years or more--in fact, since the birth of the
renowned Zoe.

M. Fille had wondered much that night of June at the listless manner and
listless playing of Carmen Barbille. For a woman of such spirit and fire
it would seem as though she must be in ill-health to play like that.
Yet when he looked at her he saw only the comeliness of a woman whom the
life of the haut habitant had not destroyed or, indeed, dimmed. Her skin
was smooth, she had no wrinkles, and her neck was a pillar of softly
moulded white flesh, around which a man might well string unset jewels,
if he had them; for the tint and purity of her skin would be a better
setting than platinum or fine gold. But the Clerk of the Court was
really unsophisticated, or