She was a big girl now, with prominent cheek-bones, but she still had the great haggard eyes of a weak-witted child, and she made vain efforts to remain standing in a respectful attitude. Her legs shook under her, and she could scarcely articulate her words.
'Why! you have been drinking, you wicked girl!' cried Pauline, scrutinizing her keenly.
'Oh, Mademoiselle! how can you say so?'
'You were drunk and you fell down! Isn't it so? I know very well what you are all given to. Sit down, and I will go and get some arnica and a bandage.'
She attended to the girl's cheek, and tried to make her feel ashamed of herself. It was disgraceful, she told her, for a girl of her age to intoxicate herself with her father and mother, a couple of drunkards who would be found dead some morning, poisoned by calvados. The girl listened drowsily, and when her cheek was bandaged she stammered out:
'Father is always complaining of pains, and I could rub him well if you would give me a little camphorated brandy.'
Neither Pauline nor Chanteau could keep from laughing.
'No, no! I know very well what would become of the brandy. I will give you a loaf, though I'm afraid you will go and sell it and spend the money in drink. Stay where you are, and Cuche shall take you home.'
Young Cuche got up from the bench in his turn. His feet were bare; indeed, the only clothes he wore were some old breeches and a ragged shirt, through which showed parts of his skin, browned by the sun and torn by brambles. He was to be met running about the high-roads, leaping over hedges with the agility of a wolf, living like a savage, to whom hunger makes every sort of prey acceptable. He had reached the lowest depths of misery and destitution, such an abyss of wretchedness that Pauline looked at him with remorse, as though she felt guilty for allowing a human being to go on living in such a state. But whenever she had attempted to rescue him, he had always fled, hating all thought of work or service.
'Since you have come here again,' she said to him gently, 'I suppose you have thought over what I said to you last Saturday. I hope that your return here is a sign that you are not lost to all sense of what is right. You cannot go on leading your present vagabond life; I am no longer as rich as I was, and I cannot support you in idleness. Have you made up your mind to accept my offer?'