"The odds it makes to you," replied Lise, "are that you'd have him for a brother-in-law, and I want to know if you'd like him?"
Françoise shrugged her shoulders.
"Like or dislike, him or Buteau, what's the good? So long as I don't have to sleep with him. Only, if you want to know, the whole thing is hardly decent."
And she went outside to finish her bread in the yard.
Jean, feeling rather uncomfortable, affected to laugh, as at the whims of a spoilt child; while La Frimat declared that in her young days a wench like that would have been whipped till the blood came. As for Lise, she remained a moment silent and serious, absorbed once more in her washing. Then she wound up by saying:
"Well, Corporal, we'll leave it like that. I don't say no, and I don't say yes. The hay-making is come: I shall see our people; I'll make inquiries, and find out how things stand. And then we'll settle something. Will that do?"
"That'll do!"
He held out his hand, and shook the one she gave him. From her whole person, steeped in warm steam, there exuded a true housewifely scent: a scent of wood-ash perfumed with orris.