Sometimes on their stone seat he lay down, resting
his head in Gaud’s lap like a caressing child,
till, suddenly remembering propriety, he would draw
himself up erect. He would have liked to lie on
the very ground at her feet, and remain there with
his brow pressed to the hem of her garments.
Excepting the brotherly kiss he gave her when he came
and went, he did not dare to embrace her. He
adored that invisible spirit in her, which appeared
in the very sound of her pure, tranquil voice, the
expression of her smile, and in her clear eye.
One rainy evening they were sitting side by side near
the hearth, and Granny Moan was asleep opposite them.
The fire flames, dancing over the branches on the
hearth, projected their magnified shadows on the beams
overhead.
They spoke to one another in that low voice of all
lovers. But upon this particular evening their
conversation was now and again broken by long troubled
silence. He, in particular, said very little and
lowered his head with a faint smile, avoiding Gaud’s
inquiring eyes. For she had been pressing him
with questions all the evening concerning that mystery
that he positively would not divulge; and this time
he felt himself cornered. She was too quick for
him, and had fully made up her mind to learn; no possible
shifts could get him out of telling her now.
“Was it any bad tales told about me?”
she asked.
He tried to answer “yes,” and faltered:
“Oh! there was always plenty of rubbish babbled
in Paimpol and Ploubazlanec.”
She asked what, but he could not answer her; so then
she thought of something else. “Was it
about my style of dress, Yann?”
Yes, of course, that had had something to do with
it; at one time she had dressed too grandly to be
the wife of a simple fisherman. But he was obliged
to acknowledge that that was not all.
“Was it because at that time we passed for very
rich people, and you were afraid of being refused?”
“Oh, no! not that.” He said this
with such simple confidence that Gaud was amused.
Then fell another silence, during which the moaning
of the sea-winds was heard outside. Looking attentively
at him, a fresh idea struck her, and her expression
changed.
“If not anything of that sort, Yann, what
was it?” demanded she, suddenly, looking at
him fair in the eyes, with the irresistible questioning
look of one who guesses the truth, and could dispense
with confirmation.
He turned aside, laughing outright.
So at last she had, indeed, guessed aright; he never
could give her a real reason, because there was none
to give. He had simply “played the mule”
(as Sylvestre had said long ago). But everybody
had teased him so much about that Gaud, his parents,
Sylvestre, his Iceland mates, and even Gaud herself.
Hence he had stubbornly said “no,” but
knew well enough in the bottom of his heart that when
nobody thought any more about the hollow mystery it
would become “yes.”
