So very wisely he decided to take Claire's words at their face value.
"My mother is my mother," he said, deciding that the time had come at last, and that nothing was to be gained by putting it off. "Doctor Anatole is my elder brother, and as for me, I have all the family affections. But a man of my age needs something else!"
"What, another windmill?" cried Claire; "well, I will help you. I saw such a splendid place for one yesterday, right at the top of the rocky ridge they call Frigolet. It is not too high, yet it catches every wind, and oh--you can see miles and miles all about--right to the white towers of Arles, and away to the twin turrets of Château Renard among the green vineyards. There is no such view in all the mountains. And I will go up there every day and knit my stocking!"
"Oh, if only it were _my_ stocking!" groaned the miserable, tongue-tied miller, "then I might think about the matter of the windmill."
Foiled in a direct line, he was trying to arrive at his affair by a side-wind.
But Claire clapped her hands joyously, glad to get her own way on such easy terms.
"Of course, Jean-Marie, I will knit you a pair of hose--most gladly--winter woollen ones of the right Canigon fashion----"
"I did not mean one pair only," said the miller, with a slightly more brisk air, and an attempt at a knowing smile, "but--for all my life!"
"Come, you are greedy," cried Claire; "and must your mother go barefoot--and your brother the Professor, and Don Jordy, and----"
She was about to add another name, which ought to have been that of Jean-aux-Choux, but was not. She stopped, however, the current of her gay words swiftly arrested by that unspoken name.
"Jean-Marie, answer me," she said, standing with her back resolutely to the door, "there is a thing I must know. Tell me, as you are an honest man, what became of Jean d'Albret that night on the sand-dunes at Collioure? It is in my mind that you know more than you have told me. You do know, my brave Alcalde! I am sure of it. For it was you who came to borrow my hood and mantle, also my long riding-cape to give to him. And I have never seen them since. If, then, this Abbé John is a thief and a robber, you are his accomplice. Nothing better. Come--out with it!"