foundations or make a fissure in the superstructure. Again--"

Thus his oracle, but Jean Jacques' voice suddenly died down, for, as he
sat there, the face of a woman made a vivid call of recognition. He
slowly awakened from his self-hypnotism, to hear a woman speaking to him;
to see two dark eyes looking at him from under heavy black brows with
bright, intent friendliness.

"They said at the Manor you had come this way, so I thought I'd not have
my drive for nothing, and here I am. I wanted to say something to you,
M'sieu' Jean Jacques."

It was the widow of Palass Poucette. She looked very fresh and friendly
indeed, and she was the very acme of neatness. If she was not handsome,
she certainly had a true and sweet comeliness of her own, due to the deep
rose-colour of her cheeks, the ivory whiteness round the lustrous brown
eyes, the regular shining teeth which showed so much when she smiled, and
the look half laughing, half sentimental which dominated all.

Before she had finished speaking Jean Jacques was on his feet with his
hat off. Somehow she seemed to be a part of that abstraction, that
intoxication, in which he had just been drowning his accumulated
anxieties. Not that Virginie Poucette was logical or philosophical, or
a child of thought, for she was wholly the opposite-practical, sensuous,
emotional, a child of nature and of Eve. But neither was Jean Jacques a
real child of thought, though he made unconscious pretence of it. He
also was a child of nature--and Adam. He thought he had the courage of
his convictions, but it was only the courage of his emotions. His
philosophy was but the bent or inclination of a mind with a capacity
to feel things rather than to think them. He had feeling, the first