He gave a short, hard laugh.
"Upon my soul, child, I think so," he said, and the colour ran blazing to her face.
"Oh, Monsieur, I keep faith!" she cried in a voice that came from her heart.
Her outstretched hands came near to touching him, and he turned away with a sudden wrench of his whole body.
"And it is hard—yes, hard enough," he said bitterly, and went out with a mist before his eyes.
CHAPTER XXI
A NEW ENVIRONMENT
Madelon Pinel stood by the window of the inn parlour, and looked out with round shining eyes. She was in a state of pleasing excitement, and her comely cheeks vied in colour with the carnation riband in her cap, for this was her first jaunt with her husband since their marriage, and an expedition from quiet Rancy to the eight-miles-distant market-town was a dissipation of the most agreeable nature. The inn looked out on the small, crowded Place, where a great traffic of buying and selling, of cheapening and haggling was in process, and she chafed with impatience for her husband to finish his wine, and take her out into the thick of it again. He, good man, miller by the flour on his broad shoulders, stood at his ease beside her, smiling broadly. No one, he considered, could behold him without envy; for Madelon was the acknowledged belle of the countryside, and well dowered into the bargain. Altogether, a man very pleased with life, and full of pride in his married state, as he lounged beside his pretty wife, and drank his wine, one arm round her neat waist.
With a roll and a flourish the diligence drew up, and Madelon's excitement grew.
"Ah, my friend, look—look!" she cried. "There will be passengers from Paris. Oh! I hope it is full. No—what a pity! There are only four. See then, Jean Jacques, the fat old man with the nose. It is redder than Gargoulet's and one would have said that was impossible. And the little man like a rat. Fie! he has a wicked eye, that one—I declare he winked at me"; and she drew back, darting a virtuously coquettish glance at the unperturbed Jean Jacques.