“But—­what—­I don’t know.”

“Guess.”

“I cannot.  I don’t know.”

“Well, I have told Mme. Rosemilly that I wish to marry her.”

She did not answer, for her brain was buzzing, her mind in such distress that she could scarcely take it in.  She echoed:  “Marry her?”

“Yes.  Have I done well?  She is charming, do not you think?”

“Yes, charming.  You have done very well.”

“Then you approve?”

“Yes, I approve.”

“But how strangely you say so!  I could fancy that—­that you were not glad.”

“Yes, indeed, I am—­very glad.”

“Really and truly?”

“Really and truly.”

And to prove it she threw her arms round him and kissed him heartily, with warm motherly kisses.  Then, when she had wiped her eyes, which were full of tears, she observed upon the beach a man lying flat at full length like a dead body, his face hidden against the stones; it was the other one, Pierre, sunk in thought and desperation.

At this she led her little Jean farther away, quite to the edge of the waves, and there they talked for a long time of this marriage on which he had set his heart.

The rising tide drove them back to rejoin the fishers, and then they all made their way to the shore.  They roused Pierre, who pretended to be sleeping; and then came a long dinner washed down with many kinds of wine.

CHAPTER VII

In the break, on their way home, all the men dozed excepting Jean.  Beausire and Roland dropped every five minutes on to a neighbour’s shoulder which repelled them with a shove.  Then they sat up, ceased to snore, opened their eyes, muttered, “A lovely evening!” and almost immediately fell over on the other side.

By the time they reached Havre their drowsiness was so heavy that they had great difficulty in shaking it off, and Beausire even refused to go to Jean’s rooms where tea was waiting for them.  He had to be set down at his own door.

The young lawyer was to sleep in his new abode for the first time; and he was full of rather puerile glee which had suddenly come over him, at being able, that very evening, to show his betrothed the rooms she was so soon to inhabit.

The maid had gone to bed, Mme. Roland having declared that she herself would boil the water and make the tea, for she did not like the servants to be kept up for fear of fire.

No one had yet been into the lodgings but herself, Jean, and the workmen, that the surprise might be the greater at their being so pretty.

Jean begged them all to wait a moment in the ante-room.  He wanted to light the lamps and candles, and he left Mme. Rosemilly in the dark with his father and brother; then he cried:  “Come in!” opening the double door to its full width.