As they went, a man was going under the trees with a load of wood upon his back. Bébée gave a little cry of recognition.
"Oh, look, that is Jeannot! How he will wonder to see me here!"
Flamen drew her a little downward, so that the forester passed onward without perceiving them.
"Why do you do that?" said Bébée. "Shall I not speak to him?"
"Why? To have all your neighbors chatter of your feast in the forest? It is not worth while."
"Ah, but I always tell them everything," said Bébée. whose imagination had been already busy with the wonders that she would unfold to Mère Krebs and the Varnhart children.
"Then you will see but little of me, my dear. Learn to be silent, Bébée.
It is a woman's first duty, though her hardest."
"Is it?"
She did not speak for some time. She could not imagine a state of things in which she would not narrate the little daily miracles of her life to the good old garrulous women and the little open-mouthed romps. And yet—she lifted her eyes to his.
"I am glad you have told me that," she said. "Though indeed. I do not see why one should not say what one does, yet—somehow—I do not like to talk about you. It is like the pictures in the galleries, and the music in the cathedral, and the great still evenings, when the fields are all silent, and it is as if Christ walked abroad in them; I do not know how to talk of those things to the others—only to you—and I do not like to talk about you to them—do you not know?"