"Heavens, child, you are changing color; perhaps something in here (she pointed to her heart) is involved and you are doing everything for the sake of love? Ah, child, that is bad, then there is sure to be some sudden smash." Johanna followed with Margot. They purposely kept at some little distance and plucked twigs of birch, as if they meant to make a wreath of them. "How do you like her?" said Margot. "I mean Gaston's ..." "Like her? Not at all. The very idea that such girls should take a hand in the game and come to be the fashion! Just see how her gloves fit. And her hat doesn't amount to much. He ought not to let her go like that. And she must be stupid too, for she has not a word to say." "No," said Margot, "she isn't stupid; it is only that she has not struck her gait yet. And it is rather clever in her to make up to our stout friend so promptly." "Oh, our stout friend. Get out with her. She thinks she is the whole show. But she is nothing at all. I don't believe in backbiting, but she is false, false as the wood of the gallows." "No, Johanna, she is not really false. And she has pulled you out of a hole more than once. You know what I mean." "Good gracious, _why_ did she do it? Because she was stuck in the same hole herself, and because she always gives herself airs and thinks she is so important. Anyone as stout as that is never good." "Lord, Johanna, how you do talk. It is just the other way around, stout people are always good." "Well, have it your own way. But you cannot deny that she is a comical figure to look at. Just see how she waddles; like a fat duck. And always buttoned up to her chin because otherwise she would not look fit to be seen among decent people. And, Margot, I will not give way on that point, a slender figure is really the principal thing. We are not Turks, you know. And why wouldn't she go with us to the churchyard? Because she is afraid. Heaven forbid, she isn't thinking of any such thing, it's because she's buttoned up so tight and she can't stand the heat. And yet it isn't really so terribly hot to-day." So the conversations went, until the two couples came together again and seated themselves on a moss-grown bank. Isabeau kept looking at her watch; it seemed as if the hands would never move. But when it was half past eleven, she said: "Now, my friends, it is time; I think we have had enough of nature and may quite properly pass on to something else. We have never had a bite to eat since early this morning at about seven. For those ham sandwiches at Grunauer do not count.... But the Lord be praised, self-denial brings its own reward, as Balafre says, and hunger is the best cook. Come, ladies, the saddle of venison is beginning to be more important than anything else. Don't you think so, Johanna?" The latter shrugged her shoulders, and sought to turn aside the suspicion that any such things as venison and punch could ever matter to her.