V.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked that afternoon as they lay out in the shade of the poplars along the river bank.
"I want you to love me," she answered.
"I do love you. But we can't live on love—can we, Susette?—however pleasant that would be. I've got to work."
"Ah, your sacré work!"
"Still, you'll admit that you can't pick up écus in the road."
"You're thinking still of that miserable carter."
"No; but I'm thinking of his horses. Somebody's got to shoe them. You can't let them go lame—or be lamed by a bungler. I could have done that job as it should have been done."
"But I tell you," declared Susette, pronouncing each word with an individual stress, "I can't support the grime and the odors and the racket of your forge. You ought to find some work that I do like. We could collect wild salads together—pick wild-flowers and sell them—something like that."