“We will throw them away,” she said in a quiet voice. In my astonishment I attempted to explain that I not only could not think of accepting clothes from anybody, although for all I knew it might be the custom of hospitality in that part of the country, but that I should cut an impossible figure if I returned to France clothed as I was then.
She laughed and tossed her pretty head, saying something in old French which I did not understand, and then Pélagie trotted out with a tray on which stood two bowls of milk, a loaf of white bread, fruit, a platter of honeycomb, and a flagon of deep red wine. “You see, I have not yet broken my fast because I wished you to eat with me. But I am very hungry,” she smiled.
“I would rather die than forget one word of what you have said!” I blurted out, while my cheeks burned. “She will think me mad,” I added to myself, but she turned to me with sparkling eyes.
“Ah!” she murmured. “Then Monsieur knows all that there is of chivalry—”
She crossed herself and broke bread. I sat and watched her white hands, not daring to raise my eyes to hers.
“Will you not eat?” she asked. “Why do you look so troubled?”
Ah, why? I knew it now. I knew I would give my life to touch with my lips those rosy palms—I understood now that from the moment when I looked into her dark eyes there on the moor last night I had loved her. My great and sudden passion held me speechless.
“Are you ill at ease?” she asked again.
Then, like a man who pronounces his own doom, I answered in a low voice: “Yes, I am ill at ease for love of you.” And as she did not stir nor answer, the same power moved my lips in spite of me and I said, “I, who