he Doctor was a stout piece
of goods. Desprez was inclined to be a sheet in the wind's eye after
dinner, especially after Rhone wine, his favourite weakness. He would
then remark on the warmth of his feeling for Anastasie, and with inflamed
cheeks and a loose, flustered smile, debate upon all sorts of topics, and
be feebly and indiscreetly witty. But the adopted stable-boy would not
permit himself to entertain a doubt that savoured of ingratitude. It is
quite true that a man may be a second father to you, and yet take too
much to drink; but the best natures are ever slow to accept such truths.

The Doctor thoroughly possessed his heart, but perhaps he exaggerated his
influence over his mind. Certainly Jean-Marie adopted some of his
master's opinions, but I have yet to learn that he ever surrendered one
of his own. Convictions existed in him by divine right; they were
virgin, unwrought, the brute metal of decision. He could add others
indeed, but he could not put away; neither did he care if they were
perfectly agreed among themselves; and his spiritual pleasures had
nothing to do with turning them over or justifying them in words. Words
were with him a mere accomplishment, like dancing. When he was by
himself, his pleasures were almost vegetable. He would slip into the
woods towards Acheres, and sit in the mouth of a cave among grey birches.
His soul stared straight out of his eyes; he did not move or think;
sunlight, thin shadows moving in the wind, the edge of firs against the
sky, occupied and bound his faculties. He was pure unity, a spirit wholly
abstracted. A single mood filled him, to which all the objects of sense
contributed, as the colours of the spectrum merge and disappear in white
light.

So while the Doctor made himself drunk with words, the adopted stable-boy
bemused himself with silence.

CHAPTER V

TREASURE TROVE

The Doctor's carriage was a two-wheeled gig with a hood; a kind of vehicle
in much favour among country doctors. On how many roads has one not seen
it, a great way off between the poplars!--in how many village streets,
tied to a gate-post! This sort of chariot is affected--particularly at the
trot--by a kind of pitching movement to and fro across the axle, which
well entitles it to the style of a Noddy. The hood describes a
considerable arc against the landscape, with a solemnly absurd effect on
the contemplative pedestrian. To ride in such a carriage cannot be
numbered among