CHAPTER VII.
o you've made up your mind to lose her, Perrin?" said Mrs. Corbet, as she and her son were at supper one spring evening.
"Yes, there is nothing else to be done. Ellenor isn't a girl to treat me like that just for a bit of fun. At first, when she was just well of the small-pox, she was very kind to me. But when I spoke of our wedding day that had been put off and asked her if she wouldn't tell me it would be soon again, she turned away and didn't say another word for a long time."
"And you left her alone, I hope?"
"Indeed, but, no! I begged and prayed of her to speak to me, till she turned round. She looked white and tired. She was crying, but she was vexed, too. She told me, quite sharp, to leave her alone. She said she wasn't going to marry nobody, and she must have been mad to promise to be my wife before. And then she said she was glad she'd had the small-pox, because it had put off the wedding."
"Perrin, my son, you are far too good for her, and far too simple! If you'd have left her then and there, it's my belief she'd have come looking after me the very next day, just to see what you'd told me. And if you'd have seemed you didn't care she'd have cared a good bit more than she does."
The fisherman shook his head.
"No, it isn't like what you think. It's like this—Ellenor only cares for one man, and that's the master of Orvillière."