I don't know what more I was going to say, when Huriel came out of his room, handsome as the sun and more in a hurry to get off than I was, for I should have been just as satisfied to stay with his sister. She kept him a moment to straighten his cravat and to tie his garters at the knee, apparently not thinking him jaunty enough to dance through the wedding with Brulette, and as she did so she said: "Tell me, why were you so jealous of her dancing with any one but you? Were not you afraid of frightening her with such masterful orders?"
"Tiennet!" exclaimed Huriel, stopping short in what he was doing, and taking Charlot, whom he placed on the table and gazed at with all his eyes, "Whose child is this?"
Thérence, astonished, first asked him what he meant by the question, and then asked me why I did not answer it.
We looked each other in the eyes, like three dolts, and I would have given all I had to know how to answer, for I saw that a sword was hanging over our heads. At last, recollecting the virtue and truth I had seen that very afternoon in my cousin's eyes when I had pretty nigh asked her the same question, I plucked up courage and going straight to the point I said to Huriel, "Comrade, if you ask that question in our village many persons will tell you he is Brulette's child—"
He did not let me say more; but picking up the boy, he felt him and turned him over as a hunter examines a head of game. Fearing his anger, I tried to take the child from him; but he held him firmly, saying:—
"No fear for the poor innocent thing; my heart is not bad, and if I saw any resemblance to her I might not be able to refrain from kissing him, though I should hate the fate that brought me to it. But there is no such resemblance; my blood runs neither the hotter nor the colder with this child in my arms."
"Tiennet, Tiennet, answer him," cried Thérence, as if waking from a dream. "Answer me, too, for I don't know what all this means, and it makes me wild to think of it. There is no stain on our family and if my father believed—"
Huriel cut her short. "Wait, sister," he said; "a word too much is soon said. It is for Tiennet to speak. Come, Tiennet, you who are an honest man, tell me—one—two—whose child is that?"
"I swear to God I don't know," I answered.
"If it were hers, you would know?"