“What, not at all? Never?” said Germain, as he began to eat with a laborer’s appetite, yet stopping to cut off the more tender morsels for his companion, who persisted in refusing them and contented herself with a few chestnuts.
“Tell me, little Marie,” he went on, seeing that she had no intention of answering him, “have you never thought of marrying? Yet you are old enough?”
“Perhaps,” she said, “but I am too poor. I need at least a hundred crowns to marry, and I must work five or six years to scrape them together.”
“Poor girl, I wish Father Maurice were willing to give me a hundred crowns to make you a present of.”
“Thank you kindly, Germain. What do you suppose people would say of me?”
“What do you wish them to say of you? They know very well that I am too old to marry you. They would never believe that I—that you—”
“Look, Germain, your child is waking up,” said little Marie.
VIII
The Evening Prayer