"Then you are going to marry Rosalie?" he said in a dry tone, going straight to the point.
At that all the crafty suspicious nature of the Normandy peasant was on the alert.
"That depends," he answered quickly. "Perhaps I am and perhaps I ain't, that depends."
All this beating about the bush irritated the baron.
"Can't you give a straightforward answer?" he exclaimed. "Have you come to say you will marry the girl or not?"
The man looked at his feet as though he expected to find advice there:
"If it's as M'sieu l'curé says," he replied, "I'll have her; but if it's as M'sieu Julien says, I won't."
"What did M. Julien tell you?"
"M'sieu Julien told me as how I should have fifteen hundred francs; but M'sieu l'curé told me as how I should 'ave twenty thousand. I'll have her for twenty thousand, but I won't for fifteen hundred."
The baroness was tickled by the perplexed look on the yokel's face and began to shake with laughter as she sat in her armchair. Her gayety surprised the peasant, who looked at her suspiciously out of the corner of his eye as he waited for an answer.