He owed his wife reparation for his
evil thoughts of her. He resolved that he would get Claire the best
automobile money could buy. It is always a mistake to economize in such
matters....

His mind took a sudden turn--he felt ashamed of his egoism, and the
sensation disturbed him, for the Mayor of Falaise very seldom had
occasion to feel ashamed, either of his thoughts or of his actions. How
could he have allowed his attention to stray from the subject which
should just now be absorbing his whole mind? Thirty-six hours' supply of oxygen? Well, it might have been worse, for
a great deal can be done in thirty-six hours. True, all the salvage appliances, so the Admiral had said, were at
Cherbourg. What a shameful lack of forethought on someone's part! Still,
there was little doubt but that the _Neptune_ would be raised in--in
time. The British Navy would send her salvage appliances. Jacques de
Wissant had a traditional distrust of the English, but at such moments
all men are brothers, and just now the French and the English happened
to be allies. He himself felt far more kindly to his little girls'
governess, Miss Doughty, than he would have done five years ago. Yes, without doubt the gallant English Navy would send salvage
appliances.... There would be some hours of suspense--terrible hours for the wives and
mothers of the men, but those poor women would be upheld by the
universal sympathy shown them. He himself as mayor of the town would do
all he could. He would seek these poor women out, say consoling, hopeful
things, and Claire would help him. She had, as he knew, a very tender
heart, especially where seamen were concerned. Indeed, it was a terrible thought--that of those brave fellows down
there beneath the surface of the waters. Terrible, that is, if they were
alive--alive in the same measure as he, Jacques de Wissant, was now
alive in the keen, rushing air. Alive, and waiting for a deliverance
that might never come. The idea made him feel a queer, interior tremor. Then his mind, in spite of himself, swung back to its old moorings. How
strange that he had not been told that Commander Dupré had applied for
a change of command! Doubtless the Mediterranean was better suited,
being a tideless sea, for submarine experiments. Keen, clever Dupré,
absorbed as he was in his profession, had doubtless thought of that. But, again, how odd of Claire not to have mentioned that Dupré was
leaving Falaise! Of course it was possible that she also had been
ignorant of the fact. She very seldom spoke of other people's affairs,
and lately she had been so dreadfully worried about her sister's,
Marie-Anne's, illness. If his wife had known nothing of Commander Dupré's plans, it proved as
hardly anything else could have done how little real intimacy there
could have been between them. A man never leaves the woman he loves
unless he has grown tired of her--then, as all the world knows, except
perchance the poor soul herself, no place is too far for him to make
for. Such was Jacques de Wissant's simple, cynical philosophy concerning a
subject to which he had never given much thought. The tender passion had
always appeared to him in one of two shapes--the one was a grotesque and
slightly improper shape, which makes men do silly, absurd things; the
other came in the semblance of a sinister demon which wrecks the honour
and devastates, as nothing else can do, the happiness of respectable
families. It was this second and more hateful form which had haunted him
these last few weeks. He recalled with a sick feeling of distaste the state of mind and body
he had been in that very morning. Why, he had then been in the mood to
kill Dupré, or, at any rate, to welcome the news of his death with
fierce joy! And then, simultaneously with his discovery of how
groundless had been his jealousy, he had learnt the awful fact that the
man whom he had wrongly accused lay out there, buried and yet alive,
beneath the glistening sea, which was stretched out, like a great blue
pall, on his left. Still, it was only proper that his wife should be spared the shock of
hearing in some casual way of this awful accident. Claire had always
been sensitive, curiously so, to everything that concerned the Navy. Admiral de Saint Vilquier had recalled the horrible submarine disaster
of Bizerta harbour; Jacques de Wissant now remembered uncomfortably how
very unhappy that sad affair had made Claire. Why, one day he had found
her in a passion of tears, mourning over the tragic fate of those poor
sailor men, the crew of the _Lutin_, of whose very names she was
ignorant! At the time he had thought her betrayal of feeling very
unreasonable, but now he understood, and even shared to a certain
extent, the pain she had shown; but then he knew Dupré, knew and liked
him, and the men immured in the _Neptune_ were men of Falaise. These were the thoughts which jostled each other in Jacques de Wissant's
brain as he sat back in the Admiral's car. They were now rushing past the Pavilion de Wissant. What a pity it was
that Claire had not remained quietly at home to-day! It would have been
so much pleasanter--if one could think of anything being pleasant in
such a connection--to have gone in and told her the sad news at home. Her sister, Madeleine Baudoin, though older than Claire, was foolishly
emotional and unrestrained in the expression of her feelings. Madeleine
was sure to make a scene when she heard of Commander Dupré's peril, and
Jacques de Wissant hated scenes. He now asked himself whether there was any real necessity for his
telling his wife before her sister. All he need do was to send Claire a
message by the servant who opened the door to him. He would say that she
was wanted at home; she would think something had happened to one of the
children, and this would be a good thing, for it would prepare her in a
measure for ill tidings. From what Jacques knew of his wife he believed she would receive the
news quietly, and he, her husband, would show her every consideration;
again he reminded himself that it would be ridiculous to deny the fact
that Claire had made a friend, almost an intimate, of Commander Dupré. It would be natural, nay "correct," for her to be greatly distressed
when she heard of the accident. *       *       *       *       *

There came a familiar cutting in the road, and again the sea lay spread
out, an opaque, glistening sheet of steel, before him. He gazed across,
with a feeling of melancholy and fearful curiosity, to the swarm of
craft great and small collected round the place where the _Neptune_ lay,
eighteen fathoms deep.... He hoped Claire would not ask to go back into the town with him in order
to hear the latest news. But if she did so ask, then he would raise no
objection. Every Falaise woman, whatever her rank in life, was now full
of suspense and anxiety, and as the mayor's wife Claire had a right to
share that anxious suspense.