“Yes, but you can’t always work. You must think of the future. Some day you’ll grow old.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “There will still be Solonge.”
“Yes, but you must think of her too. Listen to me, Mademoiselle Frosine. I’m your friend. I would like to see you beyond the need of such toil as this. Well, I come to make you an offer of marriage.”
She stared at me.
“I mean, I come on behalf of a friend of mine. He is very lonely, and he wants you to be his wife. I refer to Monsieur Helstern.”
She continued to stare as if amazed.
“It is droll Monsieur Helstern cannot speak for himself,” she said at last.
“He has been trying to, but—well, you know Helstern. He’s as shy as a child.”
Her face changed oddly. The laughter went out of it. Her head drooped, and she gazed at her work in an unseeing way. She was silent so long that I became uncomfortable. Then suddenly she looked up, and her eyes were aglitter with tears.
“Listen, my friend. I want you to hear my story, then tell me if I ought to marry Monsieur Helstern.