"Yes, we come to rest."
That was all. But the next Sunday she laughed on seeing them, laughed with a protecting benevolence and a feminine keenness which knew well enough that they were bashful. And she asked:
"What are you doing there? Are you trying to see the grass grow?"
Luc was cheered up by this, and smiled likewise: "Maybe we are."
"That's pretty slow work," said she.
He answered, still laughing: "Well, yes, it is."
She went on. But coming back with a milk-pail full of milk, she stopped again before them, and said:
"Would you like a little? It will taste like home."
With the instinctive feeling that they were of the same peasant race as she, being herself perhaps also far away from home, she had divined and touched the spot.
They were both touched. Then with some difficulty, she managed to make a little milk run into the neck of the glass bottle in which they carried their wine. And Luc drank first, with little swallows, stopping every minute to see whether he had drunk more than his half. Then he handed the bottle to Jean.