The child asked nothing better than to go with Denise. They left Bertrand in the act of making a military salute to Mère Fourcy, who had just entered the room, and they started for the cabin.
But Denise was moved by conflicting emotions, of whose source she had no very definite idea: she was happy, and yet she trembled, and her breathing was labored; and as one cannot run far under such circumstances, Denise slackened her pace. But Coco ran on ahead, because at seven years of age such emotions are unknown.
Denise was so engrossed by what Bertrand had said to her, that she did not at first notice that the child had left her; but Coco was well acquainted with the roads, so that the girl was not anxious about him, and she paused a moment under a great tree, glad of an opportunity to prepare for her meeting with the young man. A thousand thoughts passed through her mind; but the one that recurred most frequently was that Auguste had come to the village again solely because he thought that she did not love him.
“Is it quite certain that he thinks that?” said Denise to herself; “perhaps Monsieur Bertrand heard wrong. Is it quite true that Monsieur Auguste is such a deceiver as he says? An old soldier can’t know much about all those things. But after all, what difference does it make to me, as I don’t care for the young man? As Monsieur Bertrand says, what good would it do me to love him? He’d just laugh at me afterward. Oh! there’s no danger of my marrying a young man from Paris.—A rake, a seducer, fickle——”
Having reflected thus, the maiden arranged her neckerchief, adjusted her cap, retied her apron, and looked down at herself, murmuring:
“Oh dear! how tumbled I am! If I had known this morning—if I could have guessed. That gentleman won’t think me pretty again—Bah! it’s all one to me; but a body don’t like to look as if she was careless and hadn’t any taste.”
At last, having completed her scrutiny of her toilet, Denise was about to leave the tree, when she heard a voice. It was Auguste’s. The girl recognized it, and she had to stop again to recover her breath.
But Auguste was not alone; he was talking and laughing with a pretty, rosy-cheeked peasant girl, by whose side he was walking, leading his horse by the rein. Denise being hidden by the great tree, Dalville did not see her.
The peasant halted a hundred yards from the tree which concealed Denise.
“Adieu, monsieur; I’m going this way; and if you’re going to Montfermeil, that’s your road straight ahead.”