“No, my dear; horses are too difficult,” said Monsieur Rambaud. “But if you like I’ll show you how to make carriages.”
This was always the fashion in which their game came to an end. Jeanne, all ears and eyes, watched her kindly playfellow folding the paper into a multitude of little squares, and afterwards she followed his example; but she would make mistakes and then stamp her feet in vexation. However, she already knew how to manufacture boats and bishops’ mitres.
“You see,” resumed Monsieur Rambaud patiently, “you make four corners like that; then you turn them back—”
With his ears on the alert, he must during the last moment have heard some of the words spoken in the next room; for his poor hands were now trembling more and more, while his tongue faltered, so that he could only half articulate his sentences.
Hélène, who was unable to quiet herself, now began the conversation anew. “Marry again! And whom, pray?” she suddenly asked the priest, as she laid her work down on the table. “You have some one in view, have you not?”
Abbé Jouve rose from his chair and stalked slowly up and down. Without halting, he nodded assent.
“Well! tell me who he is,” she said.
For a moment he lingered before her erect, then, shrugging his shoulders, said: “What’s the good, since you decline?”
“No matter, I want to know,” she replied. “How can I make up my mind when I don’t know?”
He did not answer her immediately, but remained standing there, gazing into her face. A somewhat sad smile wreathed his lips. At last he exclaimed, almost in a whisper: “What! have you not guessed?”