“You men are so aggravating, you never let anything bother you, but we poor creatures grow old, because we have all the weight thrown on our shoulders; see what a wreck I am! once I was like a fresh peach to look at, and to touch too, if you remember? Such hair as I had! such skin, such a figure, and where has it all gone now? Own up now, you would not have known me if you had met me in the street?” “I would have known you anywhere out of all the women in the world, with my eyes shut.” “Perhaps so, but if they were open? I have lost teeth, my cheeks have fallen in, I have red eyes, and a sharp nose; while as for my throat and all the rest of it, I am nothing but an old meal sack, and that’s the truth!” “In my eyes you are always young.” “You must be blind, then.” “No, Belette, my sight at least is as keen as ever. Do you remember? You were called that because you were like a little weasel, and here you are, run to earth, after all your doublings and turnings, and you still have your little sharp nose, and bright eyes like your namesake, shining up at me out of your burrow.” “It’s safe enough now, at any rate, for the old fox to come near me. Well, love has not made you any thinner.” “Why should it?” said I, laughing. “The creature has to be fed!” “Perhaps it would do as well to give him something to drink,” said she, so we went into the farmhouse, and sat down at the table. The Lord knows what it was that she placed before me! I was too much taken up with other things to notice, but all the time I plied a good knife and fork as usual, while she sat opposite with her elbows on the table, and when our eyes met, she gave me a smile. “Are you feeling a little better?” “Stomach empty, heart heavy, belly full, heart light! that’s what the old song tells us,” said I. She was silent, but her big clever mouth twitched at the corners, and I kept on talking of the first thing that came into my head, while we looked at one another, and thought of all that had passed between us. “Breugnon,” said she, at last, “I can tell you, now that it does not matter, it was you I was in love with.” “I knew it all the time,” said I calmly. “And if you knew so much, why did you say nothing about it?” “Because, of course, you would have been just perverse enough to contradict me.” “What difference would that have made, if you had been sure of the contrary? You kiss people’s lips, not the words that come out of them!” “Something more than words used to come out of your lips, on occasion.--Do you remember that night we caught you with the miller?” “It was all your fault,” she said, “or mine, if you like to say so, but, Colas, you that have so much penetration, did you know one thing? I took him out of pure spite, because you went off that time with Pinon? I had been angry with you for a long time, ever since that evening,--I don’t know if you recollect it,--when you despised me.” “I? Never in the world!”