Colin de Greux came with the evening. He had grown tall with the years, and was not ill looking. He was still the same easy-going, lumbering, dull sort of fellow whose good opinion of himself rendered him impervious to rebuffs or coldness. He was not the youth that ordinarily Isabeau would have chosen for her child, but Jeanne had never encouraged attentions from the village lads, who now fought shy of her because of her extreme piety. Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. Jacques and Isabeau judged that marriage even with Colin was better than the fancies that filled their daughter’s mind. Beside, where another might be easily repulsed Colin could be induced to continue his wooing. Jeanne saw through this reasoning. She determined to make short shrift of Colin.
When the evening came, therefore, she took a hoe and went into the garden. Colin found her there industriously at work among the artichokes.
“How do you do, Jeanne?” he said sheepishly.
“Very well indeed, Colin.” Jeanne wielded the hoe vigorously, and gave no indication of quitting her seemingly absorbing task.
There came a silence. Had they been with the sheep on the uplands Colin would have been thoroughly at ease. As it was there was something about the maiden’s manner that disturbed his assurance. He had not been wont to feel so in her presence.
“It’s warm out here,” he ventured presently.
“Perchance you will find it cooler in the house,” intimated the girl sweetly.
“The family will be there,” he objected, looking suggestively at a bench under an apple tree. The youths and the maidens of Domremy always sat together when the suitor was approved by the parents. Jeanne’s cool, steadfast gaze disconcerted him.
“Why, yes, Colin, they will be there. You will find them all, I think. Jean and Pierre are with mother. Did you wish to see them?”