It seemed as if Joseph's gentle words poured a balm into the girl's blood, for Thérence no longer refused to sit down and eat with us; and Joseph sat between the two beauties, while I, profiting by the easy ways I had noticed the night before, walked about as I ate, and sat sometimes near one and sometimes near the other.
I did my best to please the woodland lass with my attentions, and I made it a point of honor to show her that we Berrichons were not bears. She answered my civilities very gently, but I could not make her raise her eyes to mine all the time we were talking. She seemed to me to have an odd temper, quick to take offence and full of distrust. And yet, when she was tranquil, there was something so good in her expression and in her voice that it was impossible to take a bad idea of her. But neither in her good moments nor at any other time did I dare ask her if she remembered that I had carried her in my arms and that she had rewarded me with a kiss. I was very sure it was she, for her father, to whom I had already spoken, had not forgotten the circumstance, and declared he had recalled my face without knowing where he had seen it.
During breakfast Brulette, as she told me afterwards, began to have an inkling of a certain matter, and she at once took it into her head to watch and keep quiet so as to get at the bottom of it.
"Now," said she, "do you suppose I am going to sit all day with my arms folded? Without being a hard worker, I don't say my beads from one meal to another, and I beg of you, Thérence, to give me some work by which I can help you."
"I don't want any help," replied Thérence; "and as for you, you don't need any work to occupy you."
"Why not, my dear?"
"Because you have your friend, and as I should be in the way when you talk with him I shall go away if you wish to stay here, or I shall stay here if you wish to go away."
"That won't please either José or me," said Brulette, rather maliciously. "I have no secrets to tell him; all that we had to say to each other we said yesterday. And now the pleasure we take in each other's company will only be increased if you are with us, and we beg you to stay—unless you have some one you prefer to us."
Thérence seemed undecided, and the way she looked at Joseph showed Brulette that her pride suffered from the fear of being in the way. Whereupon Brulette said to Joseph, "Help me to keep her! You want her, don't you? Didn't you say just now that we were your two guardian angels? Don't you want us to work together for your recovery?"
"You are right, Brulette," said Joseph. "Between two such kind hearts I shall get well quickly; and if you both love me I think each will love me better,—just as we do a task better with a good comrade who gives us his strength and doubles ours."