“I shall always wish to be near you whether I am grown up or not,” returned Odette diplomatically. “Well, I am going to hunt up Grandfather Le Brun. I know I can get him to tell me anything. _Au revoir_, Odette.” “You will tell me what you learn?” “If I may,” Lucie answered back and then ran on to the house, to find Mons. Le Brun smoking under the trees. “Vell, Mees,” he greeted her, “’ow do you do?” “Very well, sir.” “Ver-r-ee vell, seer,” he tried to repeat. “Very well, not ‘very vell,’ and you don’t say ‘_seer_,’ you say ‘sir.’” “‘_Bien._’ I say ‘Ver-ree ou-ell, sur.’ Correct, no?” “Much better, very much better. Monsieur, I want you to tell me something. How do people act when they are in love?” “_Mon Dieu!_ She wishes to conjugate the verb _amo_. It is so long, mademoiselle, since I played the young lover I should scarcely know. I love; you love; he loves; that is how it goes. But why do you ask? Are you perhaps falling in love, with the doctor is it? There is no one else but Gaspard, and Gaspard--” “Exactly; it is Gaspard whom I mean.” “But, my child--” The old man became so agitated that he dropped his stick, which Lucie hastened to pick up. “Gaspard--your parents; you are so young, moreover Gaspard--” He paused helplessly. Lucie burst into a peal of laughter. “You didn’t suppose I was talking about Gaspard and myself?” She laughed again. He shrugged his shoulders. “They are impossible, these females. One cannot tell what they mean. You ask me about love. You mention Gaspard. What am I to think?” “Dear monsieur, forgive me. It is all my fault. Come let us sit down under our own tree of the morning study and I will explain. I perceive that this Gaspard prefers Annette’s society to yours or mine, and I begin to wonder. I forget that Annette will so soon be grown up; when I do realize I see that it is quite possible that they should be fianced, but Annette who has always confided in me suddenly tells me nothing, so I come to you.” “You admit it would be a very good arrangement. Annette will have a respectable _dot_; Gaspard will inherit this place. We are old, my wife and I. We wish to see Annette well settled. I tell you this in confidence, because of my old friendship for your grandfather and of your friendship for Annette. Nothing can be positively settled until Madame Guerin returns, but then--we know her wishes upon this subject and so you may guess how it will turn out.” Lucie lost no time in telling Odette what she had found out. “You are the wisest creature, Odette,” she said. “I should never in the world have thought of this by myself. I don’t see how you know so much. I am with Annette much more than you and yet I didn’t suspect.” Odette smiled a little demure smile. She was much more sedate in these days than she had been in the city. Probably she worked off her surplus energy in the fields. “One sees some things, hears some things, guesses the rest,” she replied.