"Call her back, Alain," she cried.
"But, mother, why?" said Mlle. Marguerite quickly, though so far she had apparently taken no notice of the incident.
"My dear child, perhaps this girl does not thoroughly understand how much I should enjoy, and how much she ought to enjoy, running about barefooted in the dust. It would be nice, at any rate, to leave her some little souvenir."
"Money!" replied Mlle. Marguerite. "Oh, mother, don't! Don't soil her happiness with money."
This delicate sentiment—which, by the way, poor Christine might not have appreciated—was astonishing enough in the mouth of Mlle. Marguerite, who did not, as a rule, pride herself on such subtlety. Indeed, I thought she was joking, though she showed no signs of amusement. However that may be, her mother took the caprice very seriously. It was decided enthusiastically to leave this idyll to innocence and bare feet.
After this pretty episode Mme. Laroque relapsed into her smiling ecstasy, and Mlle. Marguerite fanned herself more seriously than ever. An hour later we reached our destination. Like most of the farms in this country, where the uplands and plateaux are the sterile lande, the farm of Langoat lies in the hollow of a valley, with a water-course running through it.
The farmer's wife was better, and at once set to work preparing dinner, the chief elements of which we had been careful to bring with us. It was served on the natural lawn of a meadow, under the shade of an enormous chestnut. Mme. Laroque, though sitting in a most uncomfortable attitude, on one of the cushions from the carriage, seemed perfectly radiant. She said our party reminded her of the groups of reapers we see crowding under the shade of a hedge, whose rustic feasts she had always envied. As for me, I might perhaps at another time have found a singular sweetness in the close and easy intimacy, which an outdoor meal of this kind usually creates among the guests. But, with a painful feeling of constraint, I thrust away an enjoyment that might inflict regret, and the bread of this transient fraternity was bitter in my mouth.
"Have you ever been up there?" said Mme. Laroque to me as we finished dinner. She indicated the top of a lofty hill which commanded the meadow we were in.
"No, madame."
"Oh, but you should go. You get such a lovely view. You must see it ... Marguerite will take you while they're putting the horses in. Won't you?"