‘But, Nicole,’ the girl said often to her foster-mother, ‘if there were no rich people, no great people, who would buy your primeurs, your December peas, your January asparagus?’
‘We should eat them ourselves,’ said Nicole, sternly.
‘You might do that now; but I do not think that eating them would pay you for all they cost you,’ said Yseulte, not very sure of her ground, and therefore timid in treading it.
‘We should not grow them; there would be no need to grow them,’ said Nicole, obstinately. ‘Everybody would have his cabbage in his pot if there were not those pestilent aristocrats and rich folks.’
‘But you might plant cabbages now,’ insisted her pétiote. ‘Why should you not plant cabbages everywhere now if you like? Only you always say it is only the primeurs that pay well.’
‘Oh, ma mie, you belong to them, so you defend them!’ grumbled her foster-mother, finding the argument go against her. ‘And what are they going to do with you? Cut off all your beautiful hair, and cram you between four stone walls all your life, because it suits their pride to get rid of you!’
‘One cannot live better than in God’s service,’ said Yseulte, with a passing blush.
‘Oh, yes, one can,’ muttered Nicole, ‘when one is sixteen years old and has a face like yours; one could have a gallant lover, and a loyal lord, a home of one’s own, and children one after another at one’s breast.’
A colour like that of the red winter roses which she was binding up for the Nice markets came into the girl’s cheeks.