"For him," she repeated firmly.
"For anybody," insisted the pedler.
"For who?" she asked in scorn.
"For me!" cried Jean François. "For me."
She looked at him for fully a minute with surprise upon her face. Then, with a curl upon her lips, yet a kinder note in her voice to soften the harshness of her words, she slowly, deliberately, replied:
"My good, good friend, Jean François, you lie!"
"Nance!"
"Jean François!"
"Very well, then," said he, with a shrug, "have your way.... As for you, however, my dear, the road can be no more for you."
He had been dreading saying this to her. It had been upon his lips a dozen times in the last few days, yet his uncertainty as to the wiseness of talking to her at all upon such a subject had kept his mouth closed.... He now continued: