He sighed again, much more lamentably than before.
Taking the farmer’s wife by the hand as the searchers returned fruitless in their search, he took her up a couple of the stairs and showed her the girl, mooning on the window sill among the morning glories and vines.
“Catherine!” she called: “Come, Catherine, here is Ange Pitou, with news from town.”
“Ah,” said Catherine coldly.
So coldly that Pitou’s heart failed him as he anxiously waited for her reply.
She came down the stairs with the phlegm of the Flemish girls in the old Dutch paintings.
“Yes, it is he,” she said, when on the floor.
Pitou bowed, red and trembling.
“He’s wearing a soldier’s helmet,” said a servant-woman in her young mistress’s ear.
Pitou overheard and watched for the effect. But her somewhat pallid though evercharming face showed no admiration for the brazen cap.