ick.

"All right! all right!" Louise did not disturb herself.

"She will be angry," he suggested.

"It is all the same to me! and besides----" Mademoiselle Roque gave him
to understand by a gesture that the girl was entirely subject to her
will.

She arose, however, and then complained of a headache. And, as they were
passing in front of a large cart-shed containing some faggots:

"Suppose we sat down there, _under shelter_?"

He pretended not to understand this dialectic expression, and even
teased her about her accent. Gradually the corners of her mouth were
compressed, she bit her lips; she stepped aside in order to sulk.

Frederick came over to her, swore he did not mean to annoy her, and that
he was very fond of her.

"Is that true?" she exclaimed, looking at him with a smile which lighted
up her entire face, smeared over a little with patches of bran.

He could not resist the sentiment of gallantry which was aroused in him
by her fresh youthfulness, and he replied:

"Why should I tell you a lie? Have you any doubt about it, eh?" and, as
he spoke, he passed his left hand round her waist.

A cry, soft as the cooing of a dove, leaped up from her throat. Her head
fell back, she was going to faint, when he held her up. And his virtuous
scruples were futile. At the sight of this maiden offering herself to
him he was seized with fear. He assisted her to take a few steps
slowly. He had ceased to address her in soothing words, and no longer
caring to talk of anything save the most trifling subjects, he spoke to
her about some of the principal figures in the society of Nogent.

Suddenly she repelled him, and in a bitter tone:

"You would not have the courage to run away with me!"

He remained motionless, with a look of utter amazement in his face. She
burst into sobs, and hiding her face in his breast:

"Can I live without you?"

He tried to calm her emotion. She laid her two hands on his shoulders in
order to get a better view of his face, and fixing her green eyes on his
with an almost fierce tearfulness:

"Will you be my husband?"

"But," Frederick began, casting about in his inner consciousness for a
reply. "Of course, I ask for nothing better."

At that moment M. Roque's cap appeared behind a lilac-tree.

He brought his young friend on a trip through the district in order to
show off his property; and when Frederick returned, after two days'
absence, he found three letters awaiting him at his mo