“I’m sorry to say I don’t know him; or the morose Irishman either,” said Giles, with a genial grin for his own discomfiture. “Monsieur Giles is a philosopher,” Alix now suddenly and surprisingly contributed. Though so withdrawn she had been listening, watching, and it was evident that she had a different conception of Giles’s best foot. “He is going to found a school, too. At Oxford.” “I say! Draw it mild!” cried Giles, casting a glance of delighted amusement at his young friend. “But is it not true, Giles, that the old philosopher, with the beard, thinks that you will found a school?” said Alix. “I’m afraid he only hopes I’ll follow his,” said Giles. “Philosophy is, indeed, a magnificent subject,” smiled monsieur de Valenbois, all gentle respect. “To follow a school adequately is often to find that one has founded a new one.—Does our Bergson interest you?” Giles said that he did, very much, and found that Alix had succeeded in putting his best foot forward, for they now all talked about philosophy. Monsieur de Maubert, he gathered, was a disciple of Croce’s; monsieur de Valenbois had read William James and the Pragmatists; and madame Vervier had attended Bergson’s pre-war lectures at the Sorbonne. She found the _élan vital_ in too much of a hurry. “We gallop, we gallop,” she remarked;—“but if I may not see my goal, let me linger by the way.” “As for me,” cried mademoiselle Fontaine, “give me _le bon vieux Papa de bon Dieu_ of my childhood! With him, at all events, one knows what to expect and where one is.” The young artist had made no attempt to join the conversation and, now that he had finished his coffee, he got up, taking an easel, a camp-stool, and a box of paints, and went away out on to the cliffs. His morose profile passed along against the frieze of floating sea-gulls and madame Vervier, sadly shaking her head, said that Jules was in one of his _humeurs noires_. “_Pauvre cher_!” sighed monsieur de Valenbois. It seemed that the young artist had an adored wife who was in a madhouse. “I saw her before leaving Paris,” said madame Vervier. “She is quite gentle. She allowed me to hold her hand.—But lost; altogether lost; she was like a tame bird that has strayed from its cage and cannot find its way in the forest. There it sits, on a branch, and stares into the darkness. It is pitiful.” A silence fell for a while after that, and Giles heard in it the echoes of the compassionate voice beating softly against each heart. “He will do great things,” said monsieur de Maubert presently. It was as if he turned away from the gloomy fact and displayed for their comfort the golden coin it had minted. “It is an authentic genius.” “Yes. If we can keep him alive to give it to us,” said madame Vervier. “If anyone can keep him alive it is you, Hélène,” said monsieur de Maubert.