“She will not accept? Yes, because of that. It is crazy. I am heart-broken. I ask--I ask your pardon for it.” She asked my pardon for this refusal as if it were a lapse in good manners. In the conversation which she had just had with Raymonde without doubt she had emphasised that which appealed to and blinded her, that upon which I had based my own superiority: the unexpected opportunity of this union, the change of circumstances, the pleasures of success and of life in the great world, far from “this desert.” Over the vanishing of a dream in such harmony with her aspirations she mourned as sorrowfully as Pierette over her broken pitcher. M. Mairieux, on the contrary, seemed comforted: he was to keep his daughter. On my part, suffering from this blow struck at both my passion and my pride, I cried out: “But since I love her!” I could not conceive that any one should oppose my will. Was it possible to tolerate any obstacle which did not proceed from me myself? “Possibly you do,” observed M. Mairieux, “but she is the question.” I felt an intense anger at this child, who at her age and in her position, dared not to love me. I could not believe such audacity. The whole current of my life was stopped, congealed like the surface of a frozen stream. Yet I had not said, “Will she ever love me.” Neither had I said, “Will she not love me some day.” No, I had simply said, “Since I love her!” “She will accept,” good Mme. Mairieux assured me. “How can you imagine that she will not?” To her the refusal was almost sacrilege. Seeing my stupefaction and my emotion, her husband took my hand. “We are much touched by your offer, M. Cernay,” he said. “We expected it so little. We are simple folk, without ambition. Some nice fellow, an industrious, cheerful, intelligent, upright, sensitive-souled lad who would have assured us Raymonde’s happiness--we did not ask anything more. In order to find him we were planning to go to the city the next winter or two. But you--no, truly, we did not think of it.” Throughout this harangue, which was scarcely to her taste, Mme. Mairieux kept shaking her head. Despite her denials, however, her husband continued: “Your offer is an honour. Many advantageous marriages were open to you and you chose this. Now allow us to recover our breath and think it over. I will question my daughter, and learn whether her answer is final or not.” “No, no,” protested his wife. “It is not.” “I will let you know, I promise you,” he said. “When?” I demanded instantly. “Some day soon.” To wait still longer! It was not to be dreamed of, and I turned impetuously upon my superintendent. “No, no, not some day soon--immediately. I wish to see her, to speak to her. I will learn from her why it is that she avoids me. I insist upon it.”