“Parents are right to say that, I agree, Marie,” said Germain; “but, after all, they would sacrifice the whole of youth, which is the best part of life, to provide against what may happen at an age when one has ceased to be good for anything, and when one is indifferent about ending his life in one way or another.  But I am in no danger of dying of hunger in my old age.  I am in a fair way to save up something, because, living as I do with my wife’s people, I work hard and spend nothing.  Besides, I will love you so well, you know, that that will prevent me from growing old.  They say that when a man’s happy he retains his youth, and I feel that I am younger than Bastien just from loving you; for he doesn’t love you, he’s too stupid, too much of a child to understand how pretty and good you are, and made to be courted.  Come, Marie, don’t hate me, I am not a bad man; I made my Catherine happy; she said before God, on her death-bed, that she had never been anything but contented with me, and she advised me to marry again.  It seems that her heart spoke to her child to-night, just as he went to sleep.  Didn’t you hear what he said? and how his little mouth trembled while his eyes were looking at something in the air that we couldn’t see!  He saw his mother, you may be sure, and she made him say that he wanted you to take her place.”

“Germain,” Marie replied, greatly surprised and very grave, “you talk straightforwardly, and all you say is true.  I am sure that I should do well to love you, if it wouldn’t displease your relations too much; but what would you have me do? my heart says nothing to me for you.  I like you very much; but although your age doesn’t make you ugly, it frightens me.  It seems to me as if you were something like an uncle or godfather to me; that I owe you respect, and that there would be times when you would treat me as a little girl rather than as your wife and your equal.  And then my girl friends would laugh at me, perhaps, and although it would be foolish to pay any attention to that, I think I should be ashamed and a little bit sad on my wedding-day.”

“Those are childish reasons; you talk exactly like a child, Marie!”

“Well, yes, I am a child,” she said, “and that is just why I am afraid of a man who knows too much.  You see, I’m too young for you, for you are finding fault with me already for talking foolishly!  I can’t have more sense than belongs to my years.”

“Alas! mon Dieu! how I deserve to be pitied for being so awkward and for my ill-success in saying what I think!  Marie, you don’t love me, that’s the fact; you think I am too simple and too dull.  If you loved me a little, you wouldn’t see my defects so plainly.  But you don’t love me, you see!”

“Well, it isn’t my fault,” she replied, a little wounded by his dropping the familiar form of address he had hitherto used; “I do the best I can while I listen to you, but the harder I try, the less able I am to make myself believe that we ought to be husband and wife.”