As soon as they quieted down a little Jeanne said: "How strange it is that all this does not affect me. I look upon him now as a stranger. I cannot believe that I am his wife. You see how I can laugh at his--his--want of delicacy." And without knowing why they all three embraced each other, smiling and happy. Two days later, after breakfast, just as Julien had started away from the house on horseback, a strapping young fellow from twenty-one to twenty-five years old, clad in a brand-new blue blouse with wide sleeves buttoning at the wrist, slyly jumped over the gate, as though he had been there awaiting his opportunity all the morning, crept along the Couillards' ditch, came round the château, and cautiously approached the baron and his wife, who were still sitting under the plane-tree. He took off his cap and advanced, bowing in an awkward manner. As soon as he was close to them he said: "Your servant, Monsieur le Baron, madame and the company." Then, as no one replied, he said: "It is I, I am Desiré Lecocq." As the name conveyed nothing to them, the baron asked, "What do you want?" Then, altogether upset at the necessity of explaining himself, the young fellow stuttered out as he gazed alternately at his cap, which he held in his hands, and at the roof of the château: "It was M'sieu le Curé who said something to me about this matter----" And then he stopped, fearing he might say too much and compromise his own interests. The other, lowering his voice, blurted out: "That matter of your maid--Rosalie----" Jeanne, who had guessed what was coming, had risen and moved away with her infant in her arms. "Come nearer," said the baron, pointing to the chair his daughter had just left. The peasant sat down, murmuring: "You are very good." Then he waited as though he had no more to say. After a long silence, he screwed up courage, and looking up at the sky, remarked: "There's fine weather for the time of year. But the earth will be none the better for it, as the seed is already sown." And then he was silent again. The baron was growing impatient. He plunged right into the subject and said drily: "Then it is you who are going to marry Rosalie?" The man at once became uneasy, his Norman caution being on the alert. He replied with more animation, but with a tinge of defiance: "That depends; perhaps yes, perhaps no; it depends." The baron, annoyed at this hedging, exclaimed angrily: "Answer frankly, damn it! Was this what you came here for? Yes or no! Will you marry her? Yes or no!" The bewildered man looked steadfastly at his feet: "If it is as M'sieu le Curé said, I will take her, but if it is as M'sieu Julien said, I will not take her." "What did M. Julien tell you?" "M'sieu Julien told me fifteen hundred francs and M'sieu le Curé told me that I should have twenty thousand. I will do it for twenty thousand, but I will not do it for fifteen hundred."