“Do you always make money, papa?” said little Janey. “What do you do it with? I should like to make some nice new money, like the new _sous_ Cécile gave me.” She had forgotten all about other coinage, and now knew nothing but the _sous_.
“This time, you know, I made it in the wood,” he said. “Don’t you recollect the gold among the trees?”
“That was only sunshine,” said Janey. “I see that often; but you cannot put it in your pocket. Did you dig till you came to it, papa? Was it in a big box or in a jar deep down under the trees? Margot says there is some there, if we knew where to find it. Will you show me how you got yours, papa?”
“No, no, my little girl,” he said; “you shall never soil your pretty fingers with it. There will be plenty for my Janey when I am dead.”
“I don’t want to have plenty when you are dead!” cried the child. “I don’t want to have anything when you are dead. I should like then to be dead too.”
“No, no, my little love. No, no, my Janey; you will live long, and you will be happy, and you will be kind to the poor, and think sometimes of your old father.” He had taken her on his knee, and now leaned his head upon hers. “You will never believe any harm of your father, my little girl. Whatever they say of him, you will always remember that he was very fond of you.”
“You do not feel ill, papa?” cried Helen, alarmed; while Janey, not understanding, but frightened too, peered up in his face with a pair of widely opened eyes.
“I believe it is that old witch at the _château_,” he said, and laughed. “I must beware of excitement, you know. To dine in her company being too much for me, how should I be able to bear the maddening delight of making a few francs in Latour? It will go off presently,” he added, setting Janey down from his knee. And so it did, to all appearance; there was nothing wonderful in it. But the profit he had made amused him beyond description. It did him good--or harm. It set him thinking of the outside world, and wondering what was going on there. A thirst for a newspaper suddenly came upon him. What were they doing in the world? And he himself, what had been done about him? Had he been allowed to drop without any attempt at pursuit? Had things not turned out so badly as he thought? When a man feels himself pursued, the sense of getting into a place of safety, a close cover, is sweet; but after the pleasure of the security has penetrated into every vein, what man is there who can refrain from poking his head out of the cover to look for his pursuers, and from feeling a kind of disappointment at their total disappearance? To hear them strutting about, poking at every bush, calling to each other, now here, now there, foiled yet pursuing, is more flattering, more consolatory to the fugitive. But there had been nothing of this in Mr Goulburn’s case; he had slipped through their fingers; and after he had been pleased for a long time, now he began to be almost disappointed--he wanted the excitement. He was tired of the too complete safety of his life.