To this determination had he come after three weeks residence in Brantôme. The poor-spirited drudge had drunk of the waters of life and was a drudge no more. He had passed into another world. Far remote, as down the clouded vista of long memory, he saw the bare, hopeless class room and the pale, pinched faces of the students. All that belonged to a vague past. It had no concern with the present or the future. How he had arrived at this state of being he could not tell. The change had been wrought little by little, day by day. The ten years of his servitude had been blocked out. He had the thrilling sense of starting life afresh at thirty, as he had started it, a boy of twenty. There was so much more in the open world than he had dreamed of. If the worst came to the worst he could go forth into it, knapsack on shoulders and seek his fortune; and every step he took would carry him further from Margett’s Universal College. “When is that fraud of a _marchand de bonheur_ coming?” Corinna cried impatiently. She put the question to Bigourdin the next time she met him alone—which was after the meal, on the _terrasse_. He could not tell. Perhaps to-night, to-morrow, the week after next. Fortinbras came and went like the wind, without warning. Did Mademoiselle Corinne desire his arrival so much? “I should like to see him here before I go.” “Before you go? You are leaving us, Mademoiselle?” She laughed at his look of dismay. “I can’t stay idling here for ever.” “But you have been here no time at all,” said he. “Just a little bird that comes and perches on this balustrade, looks this side and that side out of its bright eyes and then flies away.” “_Oui, c’est comme ça_,” said Corinna. “_Voilà!_” He sighed and turned to throw his broad-brimmed hat on a neighbouring table. “That’s the worst of our infamous trade of hotel keeping. You meet sincere and candid souls whose friendship you crave, but before you have time to win it, away they go like the little bird, for ever and ever out of your life.” “But you have won my friendship, Monsieur Bigourdin,” said Corinna, with rising colour. “You are very gracious, Mademoiselle Corinne. But why take it from me as soon as it is given?” “I don’t,” she retorted. “I shall always remember you and your kindness.” “_Aïe, aïe!_ You know our saying: _Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse_. It is the way of the world, the way of humanity. We say that we will remember—but other things come to dim memory, to blunt sentiment—_enfin_, we forget, not because we want to, but because we must.” “If we must,” laughed Corinna, “you’ll forget our friendship too. So we’ll be quits.”