ring for my father, and my duties in the belfry every day!"

"Youth passes swiftly, belle Maryette."

"Imitate him, beau monsieur, and swiftly pass your way!"

"_L'amour est doux, petite Marie!_"

"_Je m'en moque!_"

He rose, smiling confidently, dropped on his knees beside her, and rolled
back his cuffs.

"Come," he said, "I'll help you wash. We two should finish quickly."

"I am in no haste."

"But it will give you an hour's leisure, belle Maryette."

"Why should I wish for leisure, beau monsieur?"

"I shall try to instruct you why, when we have our hour together."

"Do you mean to pay court to me?"

"I am doing that now. My ardent courtship will already be accomplished, so
that we need not waste our hour together!" He began to laugh and wring out
the linen.

"Monsieur," she expostulated smilingly, "your apropos disturbs me. Have
you the assurance to believe that you already appeal to my heart?"

"Have I not appealed to it a little, Maryette?"

The girl averted her head coquettishly. For a few minutes they scrubbed
away there together, side by side on their knees above the rim of the
pool. Then, without warning, his hot, red lips burned her neck. Her swift
recoil was also a shudder; her face flushed.

"Don't do that!" she said sharply, straightening up in the grass where she
was kneeling.

"You are so adorable!" he pleaded in a low, tense voice.

There was a long silence. She had moved aside and away from him on her
knees; her head remained turned, too, and her features were set as though
carven out of rosy marble.

She was summoning every atom of resolution, every particle of courage to
do what she must do. Every fibre in her revolted with the effort; but she
steeled herself, and at last the forced smile was stamped on her lips, and
she dared turn her head and meet his burning gaze.

"You frighten me," she said--and her unsteady voice was convincing. "A
young girl is not courted so abruptly."

"Forgive me," he murmured. "I could not help myself--your neck is so
fragrant, so childlike----"

"Then you should treat me as you would a child!" she retorted pettishly.
"Amuse me, if you aspire to any comradeship with me. Your behaviour does
not amuse me at all."

"We shall become comrades," he said confidently, "and you shall be
sufficiently amused."

"It requires time for two people to become comrades."

"Will you give me an hour this evening?"

"What? A rendezvous?" she exclaimed, laughing.