CATHERINE contrived to be alone with Pitou in spite of her mother's presence.
Old Mother Billot had some gossips, who walked by her and maintained conversation.
Catherine, who had left her horse, returned on foot with Pitou.
Such arrangements surprise no one in the country, where people are more indulgent than they are in great cities.
It seemed natural enough for Monsieur Pitou to talk to Mademoiselle Billot. It may be none ever noticed it.
On that day all enjoyed the silence and thickness of the woods. All glory and happiness seems to reside amid the primeval grandeur of the forests.
“Here I am, Mademoiselle Catherine,” said Pitou, when they were alone.
“Why have you for so long a time not visited our farm? That is wrong, Pitou.”
“But, Mademoiselle, you know the reason!”
Pitou bit his lips. It annoyed him to hear Catherine tell a falsehood.
She saw and understood his expression.
“But, Pitou, I have something to tell you.”
“Ah!” said he. “The other day you saw me in the hut?”
“At first I did not. I did afterwards.”
“Sometimes one does not pay attention.”
Both were silent, for each had too much to think of.
Catherine said at last: “Then it was you? What were you doing there? Why did you hide yourself?”
“Curiosity might have made you.”
She stamped the ground most impatiently with her little foot.
“You were,” said she, “in a place you do not visit often.”
“I did see you very distinctly; but what were you reading?”
“A book in which I learned what I have since taught my men. To study, Madame, one must be alone.”
“True; in the forest nothing disturbs you.”
They were again silent; the rest of the party rode before them.
“When you study thus,” said Catherine, “do you study long?”
“Then you had been long there?”
“It is surprising that I did not see you when I came.”
Here she told an untruth, and Pitou felt disposed to expose her. But he was in love, and sorry for her. In his view her faults amounted to a virtue,—circumspection.
“I may have slept; I sometimes do when I study too much.”
“Well, while you slept I must have passed you. I went to the old pavilion.”
“Ah!” said Pitou, “what pavilion?”
Catherine blushed again. This time her manner was so affected that he could not believe her.
“Charny's pavilion. There is the best balm in the country. I had hurt myself, and needed some leaves. I hurt my hand.”
As if he wished to believe her, Ange looked at her hands.
“Ah!” said she, “not my hands, but my foot.”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Ah, yes! You see I do not limp.”
Catherine fancied that she had succeeded; she fancied Pitou had seen and knew nothing. She said, and it was a great mistake:—
“Then Monsieur Pitou would have cut us. He is proud of his position, and disdains peasants since he has become an officer.”
Pitou was wounded. So great a sacrifice, even though feigned, demands another recompense; and as Catherine seemed to seek to mystify Pitou, and as she doubtless laughed at him when she was with Isidore de Charny, all Pitou's good-humor passed away. Self-love is a viper asleep, on which it is never prudent to tread unless you crush it at once.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, “it seems rather that you cut me.”
“First, you refused me work, and drove me from the farm. I said nothing to Monsieur Billot, for, thank God! I yet have a heart and hands.”
“I assure you, Monsieur Pitou—”
“It matters not; of course you can manage your own affairs. If, then, you saw me at the pavilion, you should have spoken to me, instead of running away, as if you were robbing an orchard.”
The viper had stung. Catherine was uneasy.
“As if your barn had been on fire. Mademoiselle, I had not the time to shut my book before you sprang on the pony and rode away. He had been tied long enough, though, to eat up all the bark of an oak.”
“Then a tree was destroyed; but why, Monsieur Pitou, do you tell me this?”
Catherine felt that all presence of mind was leaving her.
“Ah, you were gathering balm!” said Pitou. “A horse does much in an hour.”
“No horse, Mademoiselle, could strip a tree of that size in less time. You must have been collecting more balm than would suffice to cure all the wounds received at the Bastille.”
Catherine could not say a word.
Pitou was silent; he knew he had said enough.
Mother Billot paused at the cross-road to bid adieu to her friends.
Pitou was in agony, for he felt the pain of the wounds he had inflicted, and was like a bird just ready to fly away.
“Well! what says the officer?” said Madame Billot.
“That he wishes you good-day.”
“Then good-day. Come, Catherine.”
“Ah! tell me the truth,” murmured Catherine.
“Alas!” said the poor fellow, who, as yet without experience, began to make love, through confessions which only the skilful know how to manage.
Pitou felt that his secret was rushing to his lips; he felt that the first word Catherine said would place him in her power.
He was aware, though, if he spoke he would die when Catherine confessed to him what as yet he only suspected.
He was silent as an old Roman, and bowed to Catherine with a respect which touched the young girl's heart, bowed to Madame Billot, and disappeared.
Catherine made a bound as if she would follow him.
Madame Billot said to her daughter:—
“He is a good lad, and has much feeling.”
When alone, Pitou began a long monologue on the following theme:—
“This is what is called love; at certain times it is very sweet, but at others very bitter.”
The poor lad did not know that in love there is both honey and absinthe, and that Monsieur Isidore had all the honey.
From this hour, during which she had suffered horribly, Catherine conceived a kind of respectful fear for Pitou, which a few days before she was far from feeling towards him.
When one cannot inspire love, it is not bad to inspire fear; and Pitou, who had great ideas of personal dignity, would have been not a little flattered had he discovered the existence even of such a sentiment.
As he was not, however, physiologist enough to see what the ideas of a woman a league and a half from him are, he wept and sang a countless number of songs, the theme of which was unfortunate love.
Pitou at last reached his own room, where he found his chivalric guard had placed a sentinel. The man, dead drunk, lay on a bench with his gun across his legs.
He then learned that his thirty men, good and true, had ordered an entertainment at old Father Tellier's—the old man was the Vatel of Haramont—and that twelve ladies were to crown the Turenne who had overcome the Condé of the next canton.
Pitou was too much fatigued for his stomach not to have suffered.
Pitou, being led by his sentinel to the banquet-hall, was received with acclamations which made the very walls tremble.
He bowed, sat down in silence, and with his natural coolness attacked the veal and salad.
This state of feeling lasted until his stomach was filled and his heart relieved.
