But though stumbling at every step, as a lame child through a flowery hillside in summer, she was happy as the child would be, because of the sweet, strange air that was blowing about her, and the blossoms that she could gather into her hand, so rare, so wonderful, and yet withal so familiar, because they were blossoms.
With her fingers buried in her curls, with her book on her knee, with the moon rays white and strong on the page, Bébée sat entranced as the hours went by; the children's play shouts died away; the babble of the gossip at the house doors ceased; people went by and called good night to her; the little huts shut up one by one, like the white and purple convolvulus cups in the hedges.
Bébée did not stir, nor did she hear them; she was deaf even to the singing of the nightingales in the willows, where she sat in her little thatch above, and the wet garden-ways beyond her.
A heavy step came tramping down the lane. A voice called to her,—
"What are you doing, Bébée, there, this time of the night? It is on the strike of twelve."
She started as if she were doing some evil thing, and stretched her arms out, and looked around with blinded, wondering eyes, as if she had been rudely wakened from her sleep.
"What are you doing up so late?" asked Jeannot; he was coming from the forest in the dead of night to bring food for his family; he lost his sleep thus often, but he never thought that he did anything except his duty in those long, dark, tiring tramps to and fro between Soignies and Laeken.
Bébée shut her book and smiled with dreaming eyes, that saw him not at all.
"I was reading—and, Jeannot, his name is Flamen for the world, but I may call him Victor."
"What do I care for his name?"