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СКАЧАТЬ could not buy happiness—could not prevent acute loneliness, for bought companionship is no companionship. Inskipp had tried that out thoroughly already.

      "I'd ask the Norburys to let it run on for a bit," Rackstraw said, "but they're having a hard time to make ends meet, let alone lap."

      Inskipp said that this was news to him.

      Rackstraw made a little face.

      "It wouldn't be if you slept in my room. Mrs. Norbury wants the money back that she put into the farm, and Norbury can't run to it."

      Inskipp handed over the notes now, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that Rackstraw was meditating a further request for a loan. Something biggish. He fancied that Rackstraw had been trying to get up his courage for it for some days.

      He slipped away out of doors. The orange trees were too compact and tidy for his taste. Inskipp preferred lemon trees. By the back door was a charming specimen. A sudden desire to paint it came over him. He could sketch in an amateurish way in water-colours, and he went indoors now for his sketching-block, and box of colours. He chose his pencil carefully, and set to work.

      Not for him was the one-line of the real artist, but by patient work he achieved a very accurate drawing of the little tree. Its beauty grew on him as he studied it. Its airy grace, the delicate spacing of its fine leaves which decorate but never hide branch or fruit. Its shape as it grows older is much like that of a pear tree, but the abundant, daffodil yellow fruit hangs so clear of branch or leaf, that it, seems to be backed only by the bright blue of the sky, and against that sky the effect is enchanting.

      Inskipp enjoyed the work. Unlike the writer, the artist, however poor, finds that if he is patient he enters into a life within life, a world within the world. Colours become more than something seen by the eye—they have a meaning—they have a magic—

      Inskipp decided to put in the kitchen door, the maize field with its tassels and the scarecrow that stood in one corner, and a tiny lemon sapling which grew at the base of the second lemon tree, with its little fruit the size of an acorn, but perfect in colour and shape, dotted like fairy lamps all over the slender branches.

      "Tiens! You sketch? Well, perhaps?" It was Monsieur Laroche, sipping a glass of Chateauneuf du Pape. As for the local stuff, Laroche maintained that it was not wine at all, but merely vinegar in the making.

      Monsieur Laroche repeated his remark. His mother had been Irish, and he spoke English as though born in Dublin.

      "Why should I not sketch?" Inskipp asked, putting his drawing away.

      Laroche had a way of making him feel as though he were under a microscope, than which there is no sensation more distasteful to a Briton.

      "I agree that it is in character." Ah, there he was again I Laroche could talk by the hour on what was in a man's character and what was not.

      Miss Blythe came towards them.

      "Has the noon-gun gone yet?" she asked. They all set their watches by the cannon fired from Menton fort.

      Inskipp thought she had a pretty but rather vacant face. She was very dull to talk to, very heavy in conversation, and she had a habit, which embarrassed him, of listening with her eyes rivetted intently on the speaker, as though she would never see him again, and the memory of each feature and of each expression might make all the difference to her own future.

      The gun boomed. Miss Blythe set her watch, and passed on.

      "What's her character?" he asked Laroche under his breath as the Frenchman stared meditatively after her.

      "Ah!" said Laroche between his teeth. "That is the thing she hides with all her skill. But I have my ideas!"

      Inskipp was amused. Poor quiet, dull Miss Blythe!

      "I can't think what you see of interest in her," he said truthfully.

      "I see a most uncommon sight," said Laroche almost sadly. "I see a person afraid of themselves. Yes, just that. Not, as I thought, merely afraid to show herself to others, but afraid of some weakness—or some impulse—in herself. I suspect drink," he said finally.

      "Mind you," said the writer apologetically, "that is only a guess. Chiefly because of the choice of this farm. No temptations here. Mr. Norbury keeps no cellar. His eau de vie is only useful as an embrocation. The farm had its own still, a perfectly respectable farmhouse appurtenance in France, where every windfall finds its way ultimately into it. "I wish I could dear her up," he added, "but it might take years."

      "How about asking her brother?" suggested Inskipp.

      The Frenchman considered a moment, then he shook his head. "I think not. He is born a bully under his varnish of the public school. And, by the way, how he avoids saying what school he was at."

      A sound of voices made them look up. Rackstraw and Du-Métri were walking together towards them. Mrs. Norbury was behind them.

      "Another painter! Here's Du-Métri with a pot." Laroche stepped aside to avoid its swing.

      "For the Golden Goat," said Two-Yards, with a gleam of his strong teeth, making for the gate, where he began to repaint the name. As he did so, he started one of his songs of which the refrain was:

      Apres aco, su anac. (After which I left.)

      Laroche listened to it with delight. He wondered what Mrs. Norbury would say if she could understand the words of the Rabelaisian old ditty.

      Mrs. Norbury, as it happened, was thinking of the painting that was being done, not of the song.

      "I do so dislike the farm's name." She looked at the gate frowningly. "I wanted to change it to Lou Lavandou, or Las Mimosas. Provençal names, too, both of them, but you can't change things in Provence. Not even though the last owner was gored to death in a field over there by one of his bulls."

      "But the name wouldn't alter the luck, surely." Inskipp's voice was amused.

      "It's supposed to be unlucky," said Mrs. Norbury shortly, turning back into the house, "but my husband doesn't believe in luck."

      "I thought La Chèvre d'Or is a beneficent creature who guards the hidden treasures left by the Saracens," said Elsie, who, together with Rackstraw, had come out after Mrs. Norbury.

      "And I thought he was the defender of Provençal relics, butting away the archaeologist who got too close to anything interesting," said Rackstraw.

      "One of its duties, certainly," allowed Laroche. "That Chèvre d'Or is evidently in the pay of the Department of Public Works. But he has another side. A more mysterious side. He is also The Unattainable. The Impossible-to-realise. And to see that Chèvre d'Or is to die shortly afterwards."

      "They would get that side of him from the Greeks, who settled all this part of the coast and built their temples and theatres here," said Rackstraw, who was an archaeologist.

      "Yes, in many places he is Pan. But he is other things, too. A blending of many old superstitions." Laroche made a gesture as the luncheon bell sounded. "Unless you are a Provençal—and even then—it is better to leave the mysterious creature alone."

      CHAPTER СКАЧАТЬ