"Won't you speak to them? Are you going to show ill-temper?" said Huriel, as if surprised.
"I am not out of temper," answered the young girl. "Besides, if I were, I am not forced to show it."
"You do show it though, if you won't go and welcome that young girl, who must be getting very tired of the company of men, and who will be glad enough to see another girl like herself."
"She can't be very tired of them," replied Thérence, "unless she has a bad heart. However, I am not bound to amuse her. I will serve her and help her; that is all that I consider my duty."
"But she expects you; what am I to tell her?"
"Tell her what you like; I am not obliged to render account of myself to her."
So saying, the daughter of the Head-Woodsman turned into a wood-path and Huriel stood still a moment, thinking, like a man who is trying to guess a riddle.
Then he went on his way; but I remained just where I was, rigid as a stone image. A sort of vision came over me when I first beheld Thérence; I said to myself: "That face is known to me; who is it she is like?"
Then, slowly, as I looked at her and heard her speak, I knew she reminded me of the little girl in the cart that was stuck in the mire,—the little girl who had set me dreaming all one evening, and who may have been the reason why Brulette, thinking me too simple in my tastes, had turned her love away from me. At last, when she passed close by me in going away, I noticed the black mole at the corner of her mouth, and I knew by that that she was indeed the girl of the woods whom I had carried in my arms, and who had kissed me then as readily as she now seemed unwilling even to receive me.
I stayed a long time thinking of many things in connection with this encounter; but finally Père Bastien's bagpipe, sounding a sort of fanfare, warned me that the sun was going down. I had no trouble in finding the path to the lodges, as they call the huts of the woodsmen. That belonging to Huriel was larger and better built than the rest; it consisted of two rooms, one of them being for Thérence. In front of it was a kind of shed roofed with green boughs, which served as a shelter from wind and rain; two boards placed on trestles made a table, laid for the occasion.