She blushed slightly, protesting that she had no such idea in her head. Then she added: ‘But if we should come across them, just by chance, you know, and without really seeking them, you wouldn’t mind sitting down, would you? Else you must love me very little.’
They set off, going straight through the parterre without stopping to watch the awakening of the flowers which were all dripping after their dewy bath. The morning had a rosy hue, the smile of a beautiful child, just opening its eyes on its snowy pillow.
‘Where are you taking me?’ repeated Serge.
But Albine only laughed and would not answer. Then, on reaching the stream which ran through the garden at the end of the flower-beds, she halted in great distress. The water was swollen with the late rains.
‘We shall never be able to get across,’ she murmured. ‘I can generally manage it by taking off my shoes and stockings, but, to-day, the water would reach to our waists.’
They walked for a moment or two along the bank to find some fordable point; but the girl said it was hopeless; she knew the stream quite well. Once there had been a bridge across, but it had fallen in, and had strewn the river bed with great blocks of stone, between which the water rushed along in foaming eddies.
‘Get on to my back, then,’ said Serge.
‘No, no; I’d rather not. If you were to slip, we should both of us get a famous wetting. You don’t know how treacherous those stones are.’
‘Get on to my back,’ repeated Serge.
She was tempted to do so. She stepped back for a spring, and then jumped up, like a boy; but she felt that Serge was tottering; and crying out that she was not safely seated, she got down again. However, after two more attempts, she managed to settle herself securely on Serge’s back.