“How you uphold her!  One can see that you are interested in her.”

“I uphold her because you are unjust toward her.  But I wish you to understand that she has no need of any one standing up for her—­her good name is sufficient to protect her.  Ask any one in the village—­there is but one voice on that question.”

“Come,” said Julien, huskily, “confess that you are in love with her.”

“Well! suppose I am,” said Claudet, angrily, “yes, I love her!  There, are you satisfied now?”

Although de Buxieres knew what he had to expect, he was not the less affected by so open an avowal thrust at him, as it were.  He stood for a moment, silent; then, with a fresh burst of rage: 

“You love her, do you?  Why did you not tell me before?  Why were you not more frank with me?”

As he spoke, gesticulating furiously, in front of the open window, the deep red glow of the setting sun, piercing through the boughs of the ash-trees, threw its bright reflections on his blazing eyeballs and convulsed features.  His interlocutor, leaning against the opposite corner of the window-frame, noticed, with some anxiety, the extreme agitation of his behavior, and wondered what could be the cause of such emotion.

“I?  Not frank with you!  Ah, that is a good joke, Monsieur de Buxieres!  Naturally, I should not go proclaiming on the housetops that I have a tender feeling for Mademoiselle Vincart, but, all the same, I should have told you had you asked me sooner.  I am not reserved; but, you must excuse my saying it, you are walled in like a subterranean passage.  One can not get at the color of your thoughts.  I never for a moment imagined that you were interested in Reine, and you never have made me sufficiently at home to entertain the idea of confiding in you on that subject.”

Julien remained silent.  He had reseated himself at the table, where, leaning his head in his hands, he pondered over what Claudet had said.  He placed his hand so as to screen his eyes, and bit his lips as if a painful struggle was going on within him.  The splendors of the setting sun had merged into the dusky twilight, and the last piping notes of the birds sounded faintly among the sombre trees.  A fresh breeze had sprung up, and filled the darkening room with the odor of honeysuckle.

Under the soothing influence of the falling night, Julien slowly raised his head, and addressing Claudet in a low and measured voice like a father confessor interrogating a penitent, said: 

“Does Reine know that you love her?”

“I think she must suspect it,” replied Claudet, “although I never have ventured to declare myself squarely.  But girls are very quick, Reine especially.  They soon begin to suspect there is some love at bottom, when a young man begins to hang around them too frequently.”

“You see her often, then?”