Suddenly there came an unprecedented welling of tears in her eyes, and a lump in her throat. She sprang to her feet and with rare impulsiveness thrust out her hand. “Monsieur Bigourdin, you are the best man I have ever met. I am your friend, your very great friend. But I can’t marry you. It is impossible.” He rose too, holding her and put the eternal question. “But why?” “You deserve a wife who loves you. I don’t love you. I never could love you”—and then from the infinite spaces of loneliness there spread about her soul a frozen desolation, and she stood as one blasted by Polar wind—“I shall never love a man all my life long. I am not made like that.” And she seemed to shrivel in his grasp and, flitting between the snow-clad tables like a wraith, was gone. “_Bigre!_” said Bigourdin, sitting down again. * * * * * Soon afterwards, Fortinbras and Martin, coming in from the terrace, found him sprawling over the table a monumental mass of dejection. But, full of their own conceits, they did not divine his misery. Fortinbras smote him friendly wise on his broad back and aroused him from lethargy. “It is all arranged, _mon vieux_ Gaspard,” he cried heartily. “I have been pouring into awakening ears all the divine distillations of my philosophy. I have initiated him into mysteries. He is a neophyte of whom I am proud.” Bigourdin, in no mood for allusive hyperbole, shook himself like a great dog. “What kind of imbecility are you talking?” “The late Polydore——” Fortinbras began. “Ah! Finish with it, I beg you,” interrupted Bigourdin, with an unusual air of impatience. “It isn’t a joke, I assure you,” said Martin. “I have come to the end of my resources. I must work. You will, sooner or later have to fill the place of Polydore. Give me the wages of Polydore and I am ready to fill it. I could not be more incapable, and perhaps I am a little more intelligent.” “It is serious?” “As serious as can be.” Bigourdin passed his hand over his face. “I went to sleep last night in a commonplace world, I wake up this morning to a fantastic universe in which I seem to be a leaf, like those outside”—he threw a dramatic arm—“driven by the wind. I don’t know whether I am on my head or my heels. Arrange things as seems best to you.” “You accept me then as waiter in the Hôtel des Grottes?” “_Mon cher_,” said Bigourdin, “in the state of upheaval in which I find myself I accept everything.” The upheaval or rather overthrow—for he used the word “_bouleversement_”—of the big man was evident. He sat the dejected picture of defeat. No man in the throes of sea-sickness ever cared less what happened to him. Fortinbras looked at him shrewdly and his thick lips formed themselves into a noiseless whistle. Then he exchanged a glance with Martin, who suddenly conjectured the reason of Bigourdin’s depression. “She ought to be spanked,” said he in English.