Master Nicless made an observation in an undertone, no doubt touching the intimacy between the ducal carriage and Tom-Jim-Jack—­a remark which, as it might have been irreverent and dangerous, Ursus took care not to hear.

Still Ursus was too much of an artist not to regret Tom-Jim-Jack.  He felt some disappointment.  He told his feeling to Homo, of whose discretion alone he felt certain.  He whispered into the ear of the wolf, “Since Tom-Jim-Jack ceased to come, I feel a blank as a man, and a chill as a poet.”  This pouring out of his heart to a friend relieved Ursus.

His lips were sealed before Gwynplaine, who, however, made no allusion to Tom-Jim-Jack.  The fact was that Tom-Jim-Jack’s presence or absence mattered not to Gwynplaine, absorbed as he was in Dea.

Forgetfulness fell more and more on Gwynplaine.  As for Dea, she had not even suspected the existence of a vague trouble.  At the same time, no more cabals or complaints against the Laughing Man were spoken of.  Hate seemed to have let go its hold.  All was tranquil in and around the Green Box.  No more opposition from strollers, merry-andrews, nor priests; no more grumbling outside.  Their success was unclouded.  Destiny allows of such sudden serenity.  The brilliant happiness of Gwynplaine and Dea was for the present absolutely cloudless.  Little by little it had risen to a degree which admitted of no increase.  There is one word which expresses the situation—­apogee.  Happiness, like the sea, has its high tide.  The worst thing for the perfectly happy is that it recedes.

There are two ways of being inaccessible:  being too high and being too low.  At least as much, perhaps, as the first is the second to be desired.  More surely than the eagle escapes the arrow, the animalcule escapes being crushed.  This security of insignificance, if it had ever existed on earth, was enjoyed by Gwynplaine and Dea, and never before had it been so complete.  They lived on, daily more and more ecstatically wrapt in each other.  The heart saturates itself with love as with a divine salt that preserves it, and from this arises the incorruptible constancy of those who have loved each other from the dawn of their lives, and the affection which keeps its freshness in old age.  There is such a thing as the embalmment of the heart.  It is of Daphnis and Chloe that Philemon and Baucis are made.  The old age of which we speak, evening resembling morning, was evidently reserved for Gwynplaine and Dea.  In the meantime they were young.

Ursus looked on this love as a doctor examines his case.  He had what was in those days termed a hippocratical expression of face.  He fixed his sagacious eyes on Dea, fragile and pale, and growled out, “It is lucky that she is happy.”  At other times he said, “She is lucky for her health’s sake.”  He shook his head, and at times read attentively a portion treating of heart-disease in Aviccunas, translated by Vossiscus Fortunatus, Louvain, 1650, an old worm-eaten book of his.