"Since you know it as well as I do," said Brulette, rather nettled, "keep it to sing to the first girl you make love to. If Père Bastien likes to turn the talk he hears into songs, it is not for me to draw conclusions. Besides, I know nothing about it. But my feet are tingling with cold, and while the horse walks up this hill, I shall take a run to warm them." Not waiting till I could stop the horse, she jumped on to the road and walked off in front of us as light as a little milkmaid. I wanted to get down too, but Joseph caught me by the arm and, always pursuing his own ideas, "Don't you think," said he, "that we despise those who show their desires as much as those who do not show them at all?" "If you mean me--" "I mean no one. I was only thinking of the talk we had over there, which Père Bastien turned into a song against your speech and my silence. It seems that Huriel will win his suit with the girl." "What girl?" I said, out of patience, for Joseph had never taken me into his confidence before, and I was none too pleased to have him give it out of vexation. "What girl?" he cried in a tone of angry sarcasm, "the girl of the song." "Then what suit is Huriel to win? does the girl live at a distance? is that where Huriel has gone?" Joseph thought a moment and then continued: "It is true enough, what he said, that between mastership and silence, there is prayer. That comes round to your first remark, that in order to attract we must not love too well. He who loves too well is the timid, silent one; not a word can he tear from his throat, and he is thought a fool because he is dumb with desire and false shame." "No doubt of that," I said. "I have gone through it myself many a time. But it also happened to me sometimes to speak out so badly that I had better have held my tongue; I might have fancied myself beloved a little longer." Poor Joseph bit his lips and said no more. I was sorry I had vexed him, and yet I could not prevent myself from resenting his jealousy of Huriel, knowing as I did how the latter had done his best for him against his own interests. I took, at this very time, such a disgust for jealousy that since then I have never felt a twinge of it, and I don't think I could now without good reason. I was, however, just going to speak kindly to him, when we noticed that Brulette, who was still ahead of us, had stopped on the wayside to speak to a monk, who looked short and fat, like the one I had seen in the woods of Chambérat. I whipped up the horse, and soon convinced myself that it was really Brother Nicolas. He had asked Brulette if he were far from our village, and, as he was still three miles distant and said he was very tired, she had offered to give him a lift in our conveyance.