Brulette did her best not to let me see the annoyance she felt at his departure; but having no heart for talk, she pretended to go to sleep on the fine sand of the river-bank, her head upon the panniers which were taken from the mule to rest him, and her face protected from the flies by a white handkerchief. I don't know whether she slept; I spoke to her two or three times without getting any answer, and as she had let me lay my cheek on a corner of her apron, I kept quiet too, but without sleeping at first, for I felt a little agitated by her close neighborhood.
However, weariness soon overtook me, and I lost consciousness for a short time; when I woke I heard voices, and found that the muleteer had returned and was talking with Brulette. I did not dare move the apron that I might hear more distinctly, but I held it tightly in my fingers so that the girl could not have got away even had she wished to.
"I certainly have the right," Huriel was saying, "to ask you what course you mean to pursue with that poor lad. I am his friend more than I can claim to be yours, and I should blame myself for bringing you, if you mean to deceive him."
"Who talks of deceiving him?" cried Brulette. "Why do you criticise my intentions without knowing them?"
"I don't criticise, Brulette; I question you because I like Joseph very much, and I esteem you enough to believe you will deal frankly with him."
"That is my affair, Maître Huriel; you are not the judge of my feelings, and I am not obliged to explain them. I don't ask you, for instance, if you are faithful to your wife."
"My wife!" exclaimed Huriel, as if astonished.
"Why, yes," returned Brulette, "are not you married?"
"Did I say I was?"
"I thought you said so at our house last night, when my grandfather, thinking you came to talk of marriage, made haste to refuse you."