The Beloved Traitor Part 14

Since last night the world was upside-down! Since last night he did not know himself! He knew nothing! Only that all Bernay-sur-Mer was changed. That everything was changed. That he had made Marie-Louise cry. That they had talked about that accursed piece of clay that had made Marie-Louise cry, as though it were worth talking about!

"_Sacre maudit_!" muttered Jean again. "What does it all mean?"

And then he was watching her, this glorious American, coming now along the beach toward him with the man who Marie-Louise had said was mademoiselle's father.

"Jean!"--she was calling out to him. "Here is father at last! Did you think we were never coming?"

Two hands fell upon his shoulders, holding him off at arms' length; and the man, with frank eagerness, was staring into his face. Over her father's shoulder, Myrna was laughing roguishly.

"So you are Jean Laparde?" Henry Bliss exclaimed heartily. "Well, well! My daughter told me I would lose half my surprise when I had a good look at you, and I am free to admit she was right." One hand fell from Jean's shoulder, caught Jean's hand and wrung it in a genial grip.

"Well, Jean, my boy, I want to say to you that if you will listen to me, this will be a day that you will remember as long as you live."

From one to the other Jean stared bewilderedly.

"It is to the clay figure that monsieur refers, I know," he said slowly; "but I do not understand. Mademoiselle was kind enough to praise it, but--" He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.

"But--nothing!" laughed Henry Bliss impulsively. "Here--sit down!" He sat down himself on the boat's gunwale, and turned to his daughter.

"Myrna, we're going to talk business--are you going to stay?"

"Of course, I'm going to stay!" she declared merrily, perching herself beside her father and smiling up at Jean, who still remained standing.

"It will take both of us to convince him. Jean, father wants to take you to Paris."

"To Paris!"--the words came from Jean with a sort of startled jerk.

His eyes searched the two faces for an instant uncertainly, and then he smiled incredulously. "Mademoiselle is pleased to have a little joke with me--yes?" he said quietly.

It was Henry Bliss who answered.

"Indeed, she is not!" he a.s.serted, with brisk emphasis. "That is exactly what I have to propose, my boy. My daughter tells me she cannot make you believe that the superb little statue you have made amounts to anything more than a gouged-out piece of mud. I'm not so much surprised that you have not sensed its actual worth, for I think that almost invariably the really big men in art, the men of real genius, are the last to appreciate themselves; but the astounding thing is that you have seen nothing in it at all. As a matter of fact, I can't believe it. It is impossible! It is simply that you have given it no thought. Think a little about it, Jean. How did you come to make it? How did you conceive it? Where did you get your model?"

"But I do not know," said Jean a little absently--something, the fire, the enthusiasm, the earnestness in the other's voice was kindling a strange response within him. "I do not know. I think it was the bronze statue in the great square of the city."

"The--what?" demanded Henry Bliss quickly. "What city? I know them all--and I do not recall anything that could have served as a model for you."

"And you told me, Jean," Myrna added, wagging her finger at him in pretty reproach, "that you had never been away from Bernay-sur-Mer."

Jean laughed uncomfortably, self-consciously.

"It is nothing!" he said. "You do not understand. It is foolish! The statue and the square and the city are only in the dream that comes sometimes."

"Ah--a dream!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Henry Bliss, with a quick nod of his head.

"Oh, Jean!" Myrna clapped her hands delightedly. "Tell us about it."

"There is nothing to tell, mademoiselle," he replied, colouring. "It is just a dream that comes sometimes when I am fishing, when I lie awake at night, when I am not thinking of it. That is all, mademoiselle. It means nothing."

"It means a great deal!" said Henry Bliss, jumping excitedly to his feet. "And at least it should help you to understand that it is not so impossible after all when I tell you that, barring little crudities of technique that are a paltry consideration, there is no sculptor in France to-day could produce a piece of work comparable to that which you have done."

Jean's lips were slightly parted. Excitement was upon him too. A strange stirring was in his soul.

"But I cannot believe that," he said in a low voice.

Henry Bliss's hands were on Jean's shoulders once more, pressing them in a hard, earnest grip.

"Nevertheless, it is true!" he a.s.serted forcibly, "You do not know me; but those who do could tell you that I am qualified to speak. And I tell you that it is true. I tell you that in Paris fame, wealth, the greatest name in France awaits you! You are through to-day with this life forever, my boy, if you will come with me to Paris."

Fame, wealth, the greatest name in France! Jean felt the blood leave his face. His brain seemed to whirl and to be afire. Yes, those were the words, and the man was not playing with him; but it was some wild hallucination, some bizarre mistake. To-day, to be through with the hard, penniless life of a fisherman forever--and to work hereafter only with what before had been his play! No, that was not true--it could not be true. He meant well, this man, the father of the girl whose eyes seemed to burn into his now and insist too that it was true, but the little statue had been too easily done to be anything more than perhaps a pretty little thing. Fame, a great name--that strange stirring of his soul again! G.o.d, why had this man aroused that thought within him, when it was not, could not be true?

"Monsieur," he said, and his voice in its hoa.r.s.eness sounded strangely in his own ears; "monsieur, has made a mistake. It cannot be so."

"Think so!" returned Henry Bliss bluntly. "I do not make mistakes of that kind, my boy. But I will convince you. In a few days you will see. I have telegraphed for some of the famous critics of France, men of the Academy, men whose names are known all over Europe, and they will tell you what I have told you--and their despair that it is I, not they, who have discovered you will be so pitifully genuine that even you will understand. And to-morrow we will motor to Ma.r.s.eilles and get some modelling clay for you, and you will see for yourself what you can do with that. And then, Jean, you will go to Paris with me--and work."

"If it were true, if it should be true," said Jean numbly, "still I could not go. One does not make _sous_ enough at the fishing to go to Paris."

"But, great heavens!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Henry Bliss. "That is precisely what I am offering you, young man--money. I am rich. I will pay every expense. I will establish you."

Jean shook his head.

"I could not do that--take your money," he said simply.

"Couldn't take it!" exploded the American earnestly--and then he laughed--and then grew serious once more. "Listen, my boy! I do not want you to think for a moment that this is a purely charitable little scheme on my part--far from it! It is most of it, I am afraid, utter selfishness. I love art--for many years I have devoted myself to it.

I cannot create myself--G.o.d knows the miserable attempts and the miserable failures that have been mine!--and so I have tried to help others to do what I could not do myself"--Henry Bliss was smiling now in a kindly, wistful way. "And now to discover the greatest sculptor of the age, to bring him out of obscurity into fame and power--can you not see, Jean, how selfish I am? And so why do you stand there hesitating?"

Into Myrna's face, for the girl had risen and was now standing beside them, into the man's face so close to his, Jean stared--and then his eyes swept about him, over his surroundings. It was magnificent, but it was not reality--for here was the beach, and here was the boat, and in the boat were his nets, and there was the nick in the handle of the oar where he had fended off that night from the Perigeau Reef, and out there, surf-splashed, was the reef itself, and his clothes were the same rough, coa.r.s.e clothes that he always wore just like every other fisherman in Bernay-sur-Mer. It was magnificent, but it was not reality--and yet his heart was pounding with mighty hammer beats, and the blood was surging fiercely through his veins.

"And as for the money," Henry Bliss went on quietly. "You need have no qualms on that score, my boy. Pay it back by all means, if you'll feel the better for it. In a year, two years, you'll be a wealthy man.

Why, Jean, don't you understand--there isn't one of the men who will be here shortly but would pay you any price you chose to ask for that little statue you gave to my daughter here? So, even on a basis of dollars and cents alone, as it stands now, you couldn't owe me anything, don't you see?"

What were they saying to him! Fame, a great sculptor, wealth, a name, his name, the name of Jean Laparde to be known throughout all France!

Why did it come back to him now, that night of the great storm when he had stood and watched the scene, rapt and awed, on his way to Marie-Louise? What strange blasphemy was that, that had been his, that had envied the _bon Dieu_ the creation of that mighty picture?

"Jean"--Myrna had caught his arm, her head was between her father's now and his, the soft, bronzed hair for an instant brushed his forehead, her breath was on his cheek, the grey eyes were smiling into his--"Jean, wouldn't you like to go to Paris?"

To Paris! She lived in Paris--she was always in Paris--always there.

A day, a week, two weeks, a month he would have seen her here--in Paris there would be neither days nor weeks nor months to count. The grey eyes were veiled suddenly, demurely, under the long lashes--but the little hand on his arm, with a quick, added pressure, remained. His head swam dizzily--there was an untamed, pulsing elation upon him, a greed for her that racked and tormented him, a greed to clasp her head between his hands and lift up her face and press kiss after kiss upon those eyelids, that mouth, until in the very insatiability of his pa.s.sion she should fling her arms around his neck and return his embrace!

"Yes--_yes_!" he said tensely, fiercely. "_Mon Dieu_, yes--I would like to go to Paris!"

Her hand fell from his arm.

"Oh, Jean--I'm so glad!"--it seemed as though she were whispering softly to him.

"Good!" cried Henry Bliss enthusiastically, with a double slap on Jean's shoulder.

Jean did not speak. It was not easy in an instant to quench that fire that was devouring him, it was not easy to understand that to-day all his life was to be changed. He looked at Myrna--the grey eyes were gaily mocking him, as she nodded her head. He looked at her father--Henry Bliss was laughing ingenuously like a pleased school-boy.

"I know just how you feel!" said Henry Bliss genially. "All up in the air--eh? Well, I feel that way myself. It is the most amazing thing that ever happened! It seems as though there were a dozen questions I wanted to ask you all at once. And to begin with, those _poupees_ now, how did you--no, hold on! Myrna, we'll motor over to Ma.r.s.eilles for the clay to-day, instead of waiting until to-morrow. We'll have something else to show old Bidelot by the time he gets here! You go up to the house and order an early luncheon. Jean will join us, and we'll have from now to Ma.r.s.eilles and back again to talk."

"Splendid!" agreed Myrna. "You will, won't you, Jean?"