“You have still five years to serve, haven’t you?” asked Helene, leaning back on the high wooden-seated chair, and yielding to a feeling of tenderness.

“Yes, madame; perhaps only four if they don’t need me any longer.”

It occurred to Rosalie that her mistress was thinking of her marriage, and with assumed anger, she broke in: 

“Oh! madame, he can stick in the army for another ten years if he likes!  I sha’n’t trouble myself to ask the Government for him.  He is becoming too much of a rake; yes, I believe he’s going to the dogs.  Oh! it’s useless for you to laugh—­that won’t take with me.  When we go before the mayor to get married, we’ll see on whose side the laugh is!”

At this he chuckled all the more, in order that he might show himself a lady-killer before madame, and the maid’s annoyance then became real.

“Oh!” said she, “we know all about that!  You know, madame, he’s still a booby at heart.  You’ve no idea how stupid that uniform makes them all!  That’s the way he goes on with his comrades; but if I turned him out, you would hear him sobbing on the stairs.  Oh, I don’t care a fig for you, my lad!  Why, whenever I please, won’t you always be there to do as I tell you?”

She bent forward to observe him closely; but, on seeing that his good-natured, freckled face was beginning to cloud over, she was suddenly moved, and prattled on, without any seeming transition: 

“Ah!  I didn’t tell you that I’ve received a letter from auntie.  The Guignard lot want to sell their house—­aye, and almost for nothing too.  We might perhaps be able to take it later on.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Zephyrin, brightening, “we should be quite at home there.  There’s room enough for two cows.”

With this idea they lapsed into silence.  They were now having some dessert.  The little soldier licked the jam on his bread with a child’s greedy satisfaction, while the servant girl carefully pared an apple with a maternal air.

“Madame!” all at once exclaimed Rosalie, “there’s the water boiling now.”

Helene, however, never stirred.  She felt herself enveloped by an atmosphere of happiness.  She gave a continuance to their dreams, and pictured them living in the country in the Guignards’ house and possessed of two cows.  A smile came to her face as she saw Zephyrin sitting there to all appearance so serious, though in reality he was patting Rosalie’s knee under the table, whilst she remained very stiff, affecting an innocent demeanor.  Then everything became blurred.  Helene lost all definite sense of her surroundings, of the place where she was, and of what had brought her there.  The copper pans were flashing on the walls; feelings of tenderness riveted her to the spot; her eyes had a far-away look.  She was not affected in any way by the disorderly state of the kitchen; she had no consciousness of having demeaned herself by coming there; all she felt was a deep pleasure, as when a longing has been satisfied.  Meantime the heat from the fire was bedewing her pale brow with beads of perspiration, and behind her the wind, coming in through the half-open window, quivered delightfully on her neck.