“Just tell her so ; she’ll listen to you.”

“No, no, I won’t listen to anything,” cried the girl. “I won’t let you alone tell you’ve left the farm. Your lease expires in six months; you mustn’t renew it, do you hear, papa ?”

“But what shall I do ?” said the old man, shaken by the wheedling yet imperious tone adopted by his daughter. “Must I fold my arms, I’d like to know ? I can’t amuse myself reading and singing, like you; ennui will kill me.”

“But, papa, haven’t you your property to look out for ?”

“It all takes care of itself so nicely ! there won’t be anything left for me to do. And another thing, where shall we live ? You don’t want to live with the tenant farmers, do you ?”

“No, certainly not! you must build; we’ll have a house of our own ; we’ll decorate it very differently from that nasty farm-house ; you shall see how well I understand such things !”

“Yes, no doubt, you understand all about eating up money,” retorted her father.

Athénaïs began to sulk.

“All right,” she said spitefully, “do as you please; perhaps you’ll be sorry you didn’t listen to me ; but then it will be too late.”

“What do you mean ?” queried Bénédict.

“I mean,” she replied, “that, when Madame de Raimbault finds out who the person is whom we have been boarding for three weeks, she will be furious with us, and will turn us out at the end of the lease with all sorts of lawyer’s tricks and spiteful treatment. Wouldn’t it be better to have the honors of war on our side and retire before we are driven back ?”

This reflection seemed to produce an impression on the Lhérys. They said nothing, and Bénédict, who was more and more disgusted with Athénaïs’s remarks, did not hesitate to put a bad construction on her last argument.

“That is to say,” he rejoined, “you mean to blame your parents for making Madame Louise welcome ?”

Athénaïs started and glanced at Bénédict in amazement, her face inflamed by anger and chagrin. Then she turned pale and burst into tears.

Bénédict understood her and took her hand.

“Oh ! this is frightful,” she cried in a voice broken by sobs, “ to interpret my words so ! when I love Madame Louise like my own sister !”

“Come, come, it’s a misunderstanding!” said Père Lhéry ; “ kiss and make it up.”

Bénédict kissed his cousin, whose cheeks at once recovered their usual lovely color.

“Come, child, wipe away your tears,” said Mère Lhéry ; “we’re almost there ; don’t let people see you with red eyes ; here’s somebody looking for you already.”

In truth the strains of violin and bagpipe could be heard, and several young men lay in ambush on the road, awaiting the arrival of the young ladies, in order to be the first to ask them to dance.

IV

They were young men of the same class as Bénédict, but had not his superior education, which they were inclined to look upon as a cause of reproach rather than as an advantage. Several of them were not without aspirations to the hand of Athénaïs.

“A fine prize !” cried one who had mounted a hillock to watch for the carriages; “it’s Mademoiselle Lhéry, the beauty of the Black Valley.”

“Gently, Simonneau ! she belongs to me; I have been courting her for a year. By right of priority, if you please !”

The one who spoke thus was a tall, sturdy fellow with a black eye, copper-colored skin and broad shoulders ; he was the son of the richest cattle-dealer in the province.

“That’s all very well, Pierre Blutty,” said the first speaker, “ but her intended is with her.”

“What’s that! her intended ?” cried all the rest.

“To be sure ; Cousin Bénédict.”

“Ah! Bénédict, the lawyer, the fine talker, the scholar!”

“Oh ! Père Lhéry ‘ll give him gold crowns enough to make something good of him.”

“He’s going to marry her ?”

“He’s going to marry her.”

“Oh ! but he hasn’t done it yet!”

“The parents are set on it, the girl’s set on it; it would be devilish strange if the man should refuse.”

“We mustn’t stand that, you fellows,” cried Georges Moret. “On my soul, we should have a fine neighbor, shouldn’t we ? What mighty airs the spitter of Greek would put on ! That fellow get the prettiest girl and the prettiest dowry ? No, may God strike me dumb rather!”

“The little one’s a flirt; the pale gawk”—that was the name they gave Bénédict—“isn’t handsome, neither is he a lady’s man. It’s our place to prevent this match. I say, comrades, the luckiest one of us will treat all the others on his wedding day. But first of all we must learn what to expect about Bénédict’s pretensions.”

As he spoke, Pierre Blutty walked into the middle of the road, seized the horse’s bridle, and having forced the animal to halt, presented his respects and his invitation to the young woman. Bénédict was desirous to atone for his unjust treatment of her; moreover, although he was not anxious to dispute possession of her with numerous rivals, he was very glad to mortify them a little. So he leaned against the front of the carriage in such a way as to conceal Athénaïs from them.

“Messieurs, my cousin thanks you with all her heart,” he said to them ; “but you will allow me to have the first contra-dance. She has just promised me; you are a little late.”

And, without waiting for a second invitation, he lashed the horse and drove into the village, raising clouds of dust.

Athénaïs did not anticipate such pleasure. On the day before, and again that morning, Bénédict, as he did not wish to dance with her, had pretended that he had sprained his ankle, and could not walk without limping. When she saw him walking by her side, with a determined air, her heart leaped for joy ; for, not only would it have been humiliating to the self-esteem of so pretty a girl not to open the dance with her fiancé, but Athénaïs really loved Bénédict. She instinctively realized all his superiority to herself, and as there is always a goodly share of vanity in love, she was flattered by the thought that she was destined to belong to a man who was better educated than any of those in her circle. So that she was really dazzling with bloom and animation; and her costume, which Bénédict had criticized so severely, seemed charming to less refined tastes. The women turned green with jealousy, and the men proclaimed Athénaïs Lhéry the queen of the ball.

But toward evening that brilliant star paled before the purer and more radiant light of Mademoiselle de Raimbault.

As he heard that name passing from mouth to mouth, Bénédict, impelled by curiosity, followed the crowds of admirers who thronged her path. In order to see her, he was compelled to mount a pedestal of unhewn stone, on which stood a cross held in great veneration in the village. That act of impiety—of thoughtlessness rather—caused everyone to look at him, and, as Mademoiselle de Raimbault’s eyes followed the same direction as those of the multitude, he had an unobstructed full-face view of her. He did not like her face. He had imagined a sallow, dark, passionate, mobile, Spanish type of woman, and he was unwilling to accept any other. Mademoiselle Valentine did not realize his ideal; she was fair, tall, rosy, placid, admirably beautiful in every respect. She had none of those defects with which Bénédict’s unhealthy brain had fallen in love at sight of those works of art wherein the brush, by making ugliness poetic, has made it more attractive than beauty itself. Moreover, Mademoiselle de Raimbault had a mild but true dignity of manner which was too imposing to attract at first sight. In the curve of her profile, in the fineness of her hair, in the graceful bend of her neck, in the breadth of her wide shoulders, there were a thousand reminders of the court of Louis XIV.