“Hard-hearted! I should think so indeed!” said Landry. “In the beginning, I was foolish enough to fancy that she did not repulse my love.... All day long I was devouring her with my eyes, and now and then, she too would fix her eyes on me, and after looking at me a while, would smile.... Alas! my dear Thibault, what happiness those looks and smiles were to me!... Ah! why did I not content myself with them?”
“Well, there it is,” said Thibault philosophically. “Man is so insatiable.”
“Alas! yes; I forgot that I had to do with someone above me in position, and I spoke. Then Madame Polet flew into a great rage; called me an insolent beggar, and threatened to turn me out of doors the very next week.”
“Phew!” said Thibault, “and how long ago is that?”
“Nearly three weeks.”
“And the following week is still to come?” The shoe-maker as he put the question began to feel a revival of the uneasiness which had been momentarily allayed, for he understood women better than his cousin Landry. After a minute’s silence, he continued: “Well, well, you are not so unhappy after all as I thought you.”
“Not so unhappy as you thought me?”
“No.”
“Ah! if you only knew the life I lead! never a look, or a smile! When she meets me she turns away, when I speak to her on matters concerning the mill, she listens with such a disdainful air, that instead of talking of bran and wheat and rye, of barley and oats, of first and second crops, I begin to cry, and then she says to me, Take care! in such a menacing tone, that I run away and hide myself behind the bolters.”
“Well, but why do you pay your addresses to this mistress of yours? There are plenty of girls in the country round who would be glad to have you for their wooer.”