"It is a web to entangle your love for always," she murmured, with cooing lips, which seemed, there and then, to suck the heart out of him.
He would fain have swept the coastguard and his son from the hut, but the exuberant patois of "madame," the more exuberant by reason of her characteristic disguise, broke out, demanding of the lad refreshment, and illustrating her request with significant pantomime. The childish joy of this noble Breton damsel as she devoured the rude meal in company with their quaint hosts delighted him, and the charming abandon with which she threw herself into the comedy of the situation brought heat to his already tingling blood.
Suddenly she grew grave.
"I was so hungry I forgot to ask a blessing," whereupon the buoyant little creature uprose from her seat and offered a prayer. The short Latin sentence was familiar to Ralph's ear; it was common to the whole Catholic Church; but now it had a parenthesis—a parenthesis during which her loving eyes looked first to his, then heavenward—a parenthesis of praise and thanksgiving for him.
He bent his head to hide the flush that overspread his cheeks, and, for an instant, he buried his face in his hands.
When the meal was over, Leonie ran into the potato garden. She gathered some loose weeds of which he did not know the name, picking here and there carefully that all of them should be of the right sort.
"I could not go to sleep and leave the old man to his pains," she said. "Of these"—she pointed to the herbs—"the poor people make poultices when they suffer."
He took the bundles from her hands and kissed her fingers. "You shall sleep, dearest, and I will devote myself to the poor fellow. We have reason to be very grateful to him."
"Very well, doctor," she laughed. "You must be careful to stew the leaves very soft."
Then she walked in and commanded the boy to get grass in a bag for a pillow, declaring merrily that some fishing nets and canvas in the kitchen would make her a couch fit for a queen.