I felt myself turn pale. I made her a most profound bow.
“I will leave mademoiselle,” I said gravely, “to the only company she can do justice to.”
“My own?” she asked. I did not answer, and I turned from her quivering all through. I had gone but a few paces when her voice came after me.
“Monsieur, I am dying of hunger!”
Mon Dieu! What a speech to grapple at the soul! I hurried hither and thither, plucking her a meal from the earth, from the bushes. My heart bled with a double wound.
Presently I stood before her, stern and silent. Her face, hidden in her hands, was averted from me. Suddenly she looked up.
“The little pod holds the fattest pea,” she said, and burst into tears.
Petite pluie abat grand vent.
She was very sweet and humble to me by-and-by. She made me the amende honorable by calling my heart too great for my body. And at last said she—
“I take you for my knight, monsieur—to honour and protect, to bear with and respect me——” and I kissed her brown hand in allegiance.