ge that Marie-Louise should have known! It
was true, the fishing grew irksome too often now; for those moods, like
the mood in the storm, came very often, much more often than they had
been wont to do. He had laughed at her, but that was only to pretend,
to chase the sadness away and make her eyes shine again. It was true,
too, as he had told her, that one must take things as they were.
Whether he wanted to fish or not, he must fish--_voila_! How else
could one make the _sous_ with which to live?

Oh, yes, he had laughed to make her laugh; but now, _pardieu_! it was
bringing that mood upon himself. Where was that great city and that
great square, and what was that great statue before which the people
stood rapt and spellbound, and why should it come so often to his
thoughts and be so real as though it were a very truth and not some
queer imagination of his brain? There were wonderful things in the
face of that bronze figure. He leaned a little forward toward the clay
before him, his lips half parted now, his fingers seeming to tingle
with a life, throbbing, palpitant, that was all their own, that was
apart from him entirely, for they possessed a power of movement and a
purpose that he had nothing to do with. He became absorbed in his
work, lost in it. Time passed.

"Jean," Marie-Louise called out, "let me see it now."

"Wait!" he said almost harshly. "Wait! Wait! Wait!"

"_Jean_!"--it was a hurt little cry.

He did not hear her. There was something at the base of that statue of
his dreams that always troubled him, that the people always pointed at
as they gazed; but he had never been able to make out what it was there
at the base of the statue. It was very strange that he was never able
to see that, when he could see the figure of the woman with the
wonderful face so plainly!

He worked on and on. There were neither hours nor minutes--the
afternoon deepened. There was no creek, no Marie-Louise, no
Bernay-sur-Mer, nothing--only those dreams and the little clay figure
in his hands.

And then Marie-Louise, her face a little white, timidly touched his arm.

"Jean!" she said hesitantly.

Her voice roused him. It seemed as though he was awakened from a
sleep. He brushed the hair back from his eyes, and looked around.

"_Mon Dieu_," he said, "but that was, strange!" And then he smiled,
still a little dazed, and lifted around the clay figure for her to see.
"I do not know if it is finished," he sa