During the verse Denys stood with his back to the singer, his arms folded in an attitude suggestive of antagonism; but once or twice, when he half-turned toward her, the smile on his lips and the light in his eyes told of very different feelings. When the song ceased he maintained his attitude of indifference, keeping his back to her and his arms still folded, waiting for her to speak; but when she gave no sign that she knew of his presence, he turned and stole up behind her softly, with a smile of expectation, and bent over her. Her industry and absorption appeared to increase, however, and her foot pressed the treadle, the wheel flew round, and her white fingers flashed hither and thither, tending the flax, gathering the thread, adjusting this and smoothing that, while all the while she crooned the old ballad. Her patience beat him at length. “You know I’m here,” he whispered. “Ah, Antoine, I knew your tread.” “Antoine!” exclaimed Denys with an angry start, “what do you mean by that, Lucette?” The wheel stopped and she looked round, her face a pretty mask of coquettish surprise and her eyes beaming with mischief. “So, it is not Antoine!” with just a suggestion of disappointment in the tone, a little shrug of the shapely shoulders, and a pout. “Only you. I thought you were gone for ever.” “You will drive me away, if you treat me like this. What did you mean about knowing Antoine’s tread?” For a second she let her roguish eyes rest on his, and then she smiled. “His feet are so big and so clumsy,” she said, and turned again to her wheel. “Do you mean you meet him so often you can recognize them?” “Recognize them! Mon Dieu, they are not feet to forget when once seen,” she cried lightly. “You can’t pass it off like that, Lucette. Were you expecting him here this afternoon? Is that what you mean?” He was still angry and his tone very earnest. “I didn’t expect _you_, Monsieur Catechist.” “And you meant to amuse yourself with him in my absence?” She turned and made a pretty grimace of dismay and spread out her hands. “Is it an hour since you said you would never speak to me again? What then does it matter to you? Would you play the dog in the manger?” “Will you answer my question?” “Why do you come back at all when all is at an end between us? You said so.” “Don’t you know why I come back?” The tone was full of feeling; but Lucette merely shrugged her shoulders. “To see if you had made me miserable, I suppose? You have not;” and she burst again into her song, when Denys caught her by the wrist, and looked intently into her face. “Do you mean you don’t care, Lucette?” “I care not to have my arm bruised with your great clumsy hands. Antoine would never----”