Explore "The Trespasser, Volume 2" by Gilbert Parker on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The next morning Brillon brought a note from Ian Belward, which said that he was starting, and asked Gaston to be sure and come to Paris. The note was carelessly friendly. After reading it, he lay thinking. Presently he chanced to see Jacques look intently at him.
"Well, Brillon, what is it? " he asked genially. Jacques had come on better than Gaston had hoped for, but the light play of his nature was gone -- he was grave, almost melancholy; and, in his way, as notable as his master. Their life in London had changed him much. A valet in St. James's Street was not a hunting comrade on the Coppermine River. Often when Jacques was left alone he stood at the window looking out on the gay traffic, scarcely stirring; his eyes slow, brooding. Occasionally, standing so, he would make the sacred gesture. One who heard him swear now and then, in a calm, deliberate way, -- at the cook and the porter, -- would have thought the matters in strange contrast. But his religion was a central habit, followed as mechanically as his appetite or the folding of his master's clothes. Besides, like most woodsmen, he was superstitious. Gaston was kind with him, keeping, however, a firm hand till his manner had become informed by the new duties.