"Ah! he went away again, did he? Very good! he has not gone far, I guess; we have some very important business to talk over!"
I came and went, looking at the dough, the basket of eggs, the little bowl of flour and Marie-Rose, working away without opening her lips.
Finally I stopped and said to her:
"See here, Marie-Rose, it is right to be industrious, but we have something else to do just now. What is this that I have just heard at the inspector's? Is it true that you love Jean Merlin?"
As I spoke she let fall the rolling pin and flushed scarlet.
"Yes," I said; "that's the point! I don't mean to scold you about it; Jean Merlin is a nice fellow, and a good forester, and I am not angry at him. In my time, I loved your mother dearly, and father Burat, who was my superior, neither chased me away nor swore at me because of it. It is a natural thing when one is young to think of getting married. But when one wishes to marry an honest girl, one must first ask her of her father, so that every one may be agreed. Everything ought to be conducted sensibly."
She was very much embarrassed, for on hearing that she ran to get a pot of mignonette and placed it on the sill of the open window, an action which filled me with surprise, for my wife, Catherine, had done the same thing on the day of my proposal to call me in; and almost at once Merlin came out of the clump of trees under the rocks opposite, where I also had hidden, and ran across the meadow as I myself had run, twenty-three years before!
Then, seeing these things, I did also what old Burat had done. I placed myself in the hall before the door of the room, my daughter behind me; and as Merlin entered, all out of breath, I drew myself up and said to him:
"Merlin, is it true what the inspector tells me; that you love my daughter and ask her in marriage?"
"Yes brigadier," he answered me, placing his hand on his heart, "I love her better than life! At the same time he wished to speak to Marie-Rose, but I cried: