“But——”
“Hush!”
“Well!” said Athalie, noticing that the swing moved more slowly, “what are you doing, monsieur? You are not pushing, you are letting me stop; and I don’t want that. Are you tired already? Fie! a young man too!”
At that moment appeared Monsieur Monin, who, seeing that his host was determined to practise the manual until dinner, and feeling that he had not the strength to continue, had dropped his spade and bent his steps toward the garden, where, as he wiped his forehead, he sought to freshen up his ideas by resorting to his snuff-box.
“You have come in the nick of time, Monsieur Monin,” said Madame Destival; “madame is sorely in need of somebody to swing her. Do her that service, she will be overjoyed.”
As she said this, Emilie rose, took Auguste’s arm and led him to another part of the garden, leaving Monin agape with amazement at the task assigned him, and Athalie still in the swing. Having her back to the others, she had not noticed their departure and was still ignorant of the fact that she had changed swingers.
“Well! push me, monsieur!” she said, wriggling about in the swing to make herself go.
Monin fortified himself with a pinch of snuff and walked toward the swing; but, having miscalculated the space that it covered in swinging back, the seat came down upon him as he was turning up his sleeves in order to push harder, and the young woman’s plump figure struck him in the face.
Dazed by the blow, Monin fell on the turf a step or two away; while Madame de la Thomassinière gave a little shriek because his nose had almost unseated her.
“How awkward you are!” she cried; “if I hadn’t held on tight, I should have fallen. Come and stop me, and help me to get down.—Well, monsieur, do you propose to leave me here?”