"Mais si; bon Dieu! there is something."
She placed her hands on her trembling knees.
"No, I swear there is nothing, Jean," she said faintly.
But he insisted.
"One earns so little," she confessed at length. "Ten sous a day, it is not much, and the days are so long on the marsh. If I knew how to cook I'd try and get a place like Emilienne."
"Bah!" said he, "you are crazy—one must study to cook; besides, you are not yet eighteen, the Père Bourron has yet the right to you for a year."
"That is true," confessed the girl simply; "one has not much chance when one is an orphan. Listen, Jean."
"What?"
"Listen—is it true that thou dost love me?"