You know her, Athénaïs ; do tell me again that she is pretty and sweet and resembles her father!”

“There is someone here whom she resembles much more,” replied Athénaïs, looking at Louise; “which is as much as to say that she is sweet and pretty.”

Bénédict’s face brightened and his eyes rested kindly on his fiancée.

“But listen,” said Athénaïs to Louise, “if you’re so anxious to see Mademoiselle Valentine, you should come to the fête with us ; you can keep out of sight in Cousin Simonne’s house on the square, and from there you will certainly see the ladies, for Mademoiselle Valentine assured me they would come.”

“That is impossible, my dear love,” Louise replied; “ I could not alight from the carriage without being recognized or suspected. Besides, there is only one person in that family whom I want to see ; the presence of the, others would spoil the pleasure I anticipate in seeing her. But we have talked enough about my plans ; let us talk of yours, Athénaïs. I should judge that you propose to crush the whole province by such a display of bloom and beauty !”

The young farmer-maid blushed with delight and kissed Louise with a warmth which demonstrated clearly enough the artless satisfaction she felt in being admired.

“I am going to get my hat,” she said; “you’ll help me to put it on, won’t you ?”

And she hurriedly ascended the wooden staircase leading to her chamber.

Meanwhile Mère Lhéry left the room by another door to go to change her dress ; her husband took a pitchfork and went to give his instructions for the day to the herdsman.

Thereupon Bénédict, being left alone with Louise, drew closer to her and said in a low tone :

“You spoil Athénaïs like all the rest. You are the only one who has any right to talk to her, and you do not condescend to do it.”

“Why, what cause of reproach have you against the poor child ?” said Louise, in amazement. “O Bénédict, you are very hard to suit !”

“That is what everybody tells me, even you, mademoiselle, who are so well able to understand what I suffer from this young woman’s character and absurdities !”

“Absurdities ?” repeated Louise. “Can it be that you are not in love with her ?”

Bénédict did not answer, but after a moment of silent embarrassment, he said:

“You must agree that her costume is extravagant today. The idea of dancing in the sun and dust in a ball dress, satin slippers, a cashmere shawl and feathers! Not only is such finery out of place, but I consider it in execrable taste. At her age, a young woman ought to think first of simplicity and to know how to embellish herself at small expense.”

“Is it Athénaïs’s fault if she has been brought up so ? How much you make of trifles! Give your attention rather to pleasing her and obtaining supreme influence over her mind and heart; then you may be sure that your wishes will be laws to her. But you think only of thwarting her and contradicting her, and she so petted, so like a queen in her family ! Remember how kind and how sensitive her heart is.”

“Her heart, her heart! no doubt she has a good heart; but her intellect is so limited ! her kindness of heart is all native, all born of the soil, like the plants which grow well or ill without understanding the reason. How I detest her coquetry ! I shall have to give her my arm, walk her about and exhibit her at this fête, listen to the idiotic admiration of some and the idiotic disparagement of others ! What a bore ! I wish it were over !”

“What an extraordinary disposition! Do you know, Bénédict, I can’t understand you. How many men in your place would take the greatest pride in being seen in public with the prettiest girl and the richest heiress in our whole district, in arousing the envy of twenty discarded rivals, in being able to say that you are her fiancé? Instead of that, you think of nothing but indulging in bitter criticism of some trivial failings, common to all young women of her class, whose education is not in harmony with their birth. You consider it a crime on her part to submit to the consequences of her parents’ vanity—a most harmless sort of vanity after all, and something of which you should be the last to complain.”

“I know it,” he rejoined hastily, “I know all that you are going to say. They owed me nothing and they have given me everything. They took me in, the son of their brother, a peasant like themselves, but a poor peasant—me, a penniless orphan. They gave me a home, adopted me, and instead of putting me at the plough, to which I was apparently destined by the laws of society, they sent me to Paris at their expense ; they gave me an education, they transformed me into a bourgeois, a student, a wit, and they also intend their daughter for me, their rich, lovely and vain daughter. They have reserved her for me, they offer her to me! Oh ! undoubtedly they are very fond of me, these simple-hearted and generous kindred of mine ! but their blind affection has gone astray, and all the good they have sought to do me has changed into evil. Cursed be the passion for aspiring to a higher place than one can reach !”

Bénédict stamped on the floor; Louise looked at him with a pained but stern expression.

“Is this the way you talked yesterday, when you returned from the hunt, to that ignorant, shallow-brained young nobleman, who denied the benefits of education and wanted to arrest the progress of the inferior ranks of society ? What excellent arguments you had at hand to defend the propagation of knowledge, and the theory that all men should be free to grow and succeed ! Bénédict, this fickle, irresolute, disappointed mind of yours, this mind which scrutinizes and depreciates everything, surprises me and grieves me. I am afraid that in you the good seed is changing to tares ; I am afraid that you are much below your education, or much above it, which would be no less a misfortune.”

“Louise, Louise!” said Bénédict in an altered voice, seizing the young woman’s hand.

He gazed at her earnestly and with moist eyes; Louise blushed and turned her eyes away with a displeased air. Bénédict dropped her hand and began to pace the floor excitedly and angrily ; then he returned to her and made an effort to become calm once more.

“You are too indulgent,” he said to her; “ you have lived longer than I, and yet I think that you are much younger. You have the experience of your sentiments, which are noble and generous, but you have not studied the hearts of others, you have no suspicion of their deformities and pettiness ; you attach no importance to the imperfections of others, perhaps you do not even see them ! Ah ! mademoiselle, mademoiselle ! you are a very indulgent and a very dangerous guide.”

“These are singular reproaches,” said Louise with forced gayety. “Whose mentor have I assumed to be ? Have I not always told you, on the contrary, that I was no better fitted to guide others than to guide myself ? I lack experience, you say ? Oh! I do not complain of that, I promise you !”

Tears rolled down Louise’s cheeks. There was a moment’s silence, during which Bénédict again approached and stood beside her, deeply moved and trembling. Trying to conceal her melancholy, Louise continued :

“But you are right; I have lived too much within myself to observe others thoroughly. I have wasted too much time in suffering; my life has been ill employed.”

Louise discovered that Bénédict was weeping. She was afraid of the young man’s excessive sensitiveness, and, pointing to the courtyard, she motioned to him to go to assist his uncle, who was himself harnessing a stout Poitou nag to the family conveyance. But Bénédict did not grasp her meaning.

“Louise !” he said ardently ; “ Louise !” he repeated in a lower tone. “It is a pretty name,” he continued, “ so simple and so sweet! and you bear that name, while my cousin, who is so well fitted to milk cows and watch sheep, is named Athénaïs! I have another cousin named Zoraïde, and she has just named her little brat Adhémar ! The nobles are perfectly justified in despising our absurd foibles ; they are shocking ! don’t you think so ? Here’s a spinning-wheel, my good aunt’s spinning-wheel; who supplies it with flax ? who turns it patiently in her absence ? Not Athénaïs. Oh ! no! she would think that she debased herself if she touched a spindle ; she would be afraid of going down again into the social condition from which she came if she should learn to do any useful work. No, no; she knows how to embroider, play the guitar, paint flowers and dance; but you, mademoiselle, who were born in opulence, know how to spin ; you are sweet, humble and industrious.