Andermatt snatched up his hat, saying: "Let me settle it, and I'll answer for it that we'll have the entire three of them this evening—you understand clearly, the—entire—three—at our knees. Let us go now and see the paralytic."
He cried: "Are you ready, Christiane?"
She appeared at the door, very pale, with a look of determination. Having embraced her father and her brother, she turned toward Paul, and extended her hand toward him. He took it, with downcast eyes, quivering with emotion. As the Marquis, Andermatt, and Gontran had gone on before, chatting, and without minding them, she said, in a firm voice, fixing on the young man a tender and decided glance:
"I belong to you, body and soul. Do with me henceforth what you please." Then she walked on, without giving him an opportunity of replying.
As they drew near the Oriols' spring, they perceived, like an enormous mushroom, the hat of Père Clovis, who was sleeping beneath the rays of the sun, in the warm water at the bottom of the hole. He now spent the entire morning there, having got accustomed to this boiling water which made him, he said, more lively than a yearling.
Andermatt woke him up: "Well, my fine fellow, you are going on better?"
When he had recognized his patron, the old fellow made a grimace of satisfaction: "Yes, yes, I am going on—I am going on as well as you please."
"Are you beginning to walk?"
"Like a rabbit, Mochieu—like a rabbit. I will dance a boree with my sweetheart on the first Sunday of the month."
Andermatt felt his heart beating; he repeated: "It is true, then, that you are walking?"