It was gone at last. He turned then, and started back along the road
toward Bernay-sur-Mer; now walking slowly, now suddenly changing his
pace to a quick, impulsive stride. His eyes were on the road before
him, but he saw nothing. Her voice was ringing in his ears again, and
again he was living in that golden land of dreams--with her.

Paris! The City Beautiful! Paris--where he should know fame and
power, where his genius should kindle a flame of enthusiasm that would
spread throughout all France! Paris--where men should do him honour!
Paris--where riches were! Paris--where she was!

His brain reeled with it. It was not wild imagining. A power, a
mighty power, the power that made him master of his art lived and
breathed in every fibre of his being. He needed no tongue of others
now to tell him that this power was his; the knowledge of it was in his
soul until he knew, knew as he knew that he had being and existence,
that the work of Jean Laparde would stand magnificent and supreme
before the eyes of the world. He saw himself the centre, the leader of
a glittering entourage. Fame! Men of the highest ranks should envy
him--the gamins of Paris should know his name. He threw back his head
on his great shoulders. Conceit, all this? No; it was stupendous--but
it was not conceit. He knew--his soul knew it. He was more sure of
himself now than even those great critics of France had been sure.
They had seen nothing--he had not begun. A year, two years in Paris,
the tools to work with, the models of flesh and blood at his
command--and, ah, God, what would he not do! They should see, they
should see then! And they should stand and wonder, as they had not
wondered before--at Jean Laparde!

He laughed suddenly aloud. Father Anton had preached a sermon once in
the little church, he remembered it now--that fame was an empty thing.
An empty thing! He laughed again. It was the simplicity of the good
cure, who believed such things because, _pardieu_! the cure was a
gentle soul and knew no better. What should Father Anton, who never
went anywhere, into whose life came nothing but the little daily
affairs of the fisherfolk in Bernay-sur-Mer, who could never have had
any experience in the things outside the life of the village that
turned everlastingly like a wheel in its grooves, know of fame? It was
not the fault of Father Anton that he talked so, for he got those
things out of his books, and, having no rea