'I want a wife. Voilà toute l'affaire!'
Sure never was a maiden wooed in such a fashion; sure never was a hand so demanded. 'Faint heart never won fair lady,' saith the proverb, and there is truth in it. The old man looked from his visitor to Berthe, and from Berthe to his visitor.
'You have an open face,' he said at length; 'you have been a soldier, and I trust a soldier's honour not to betray the confidence of a comrade. I feel that I am getting old, and my Song-bird will want a protector. You would guard her——'
'As the apple of my eye.'
'You can guard her?'
'I would not lead those I love on the path of misery.'
'Seek your answer from the child herself; I can read it already.'
Gently the strong man approached the girl, reverently almost, as one would approach a sanctuary. He laid his hand on the soft wavy surface of her chestnut hair, and in a voice whose soldierly firmness was modulated to gentlest coaxing persuasion he whispered:
'Darling, I wait on thee. Wilt thou accept the hand of an honest man? 'Tis rough, but there is no stain of dishonour upon it.'
'J'accepte!' murmured the girl in reply, and raised her face aglow with passionate trustfulness to his, and as he imprinted the kiss of betrothal on those candid lips, innocent of contact with man's lips before, the door of the inner room opened, and the brunette, who had been reared with Berthe, worn out probably with waiting for her little friend, stood transfixed, a picture of amazement, on its threshold.