children, and all Michel Voss’s good nature in keeping out of the way was of no avail. But Urmand was determined not to be beaten. He intended to return to Basle on the next day but one, and desired to put this matter a little in forwardness before he took his departure. On the following morning he had various appointments to keep with countrymen and their wives, who sold linen to him, but he was quick over his business and managed to get back to the inn early in the afternoon. From six till eight he well knew that Marie would allow nothing to impede her in the grand work of preparing for supper; but at four o’clock she would certainly be sitting somewhere about the house with her needle in her hand. At four o’clock he found her, not with her needle in her hand, but, better still, perfectly idle. She was standing at an open window, looking out upon the garden as he came behind her, standing motionless with both hands on the sill of the window, thinking deeply of something that filled her mind. It might be that she was thinking of him.  ‘I have done with my customers now, and I shall be off to Basle to-morrow,’ said he, as soon as she had looked round at the sound of his footsteps and perceived that he was close to her.  ‘I hope you have bought your goods well, M. Urmand.’  ‘Ah! for the matter of that the time for buying things well is clean gone. One used to be able to buy well; but there is not an old woman now in Alsace who doesn’t know as well as I do, or better, what linen is worth in Berne and Paris. They expect to get nearly as much for it here at Granpere.’  ‘They work hard, M. Urmand, and things are dearer than they were. It is well that they should get a price for their labour.’  ‘A price, yes:—but how is a man to buy without a profit? They think that I come here for their sakes,—merely to bring the market to their doors.’ Then he began to remember that he had no special object in discussing the circumstances of his trade with Marie Bromar, and that he had a special object in another direction. But how to turn the subject was now a difficulty.  ‘I am sure you do not buy without a profit,’ said Marie Bromar, when she found that he was silent. ‘And then the poor people, who have to pay so dear for everything!’ She was making a violent attempt to keep him on the ground of his customers and his purchases.  ‘There was another thing that I wanted to say to you, Marie,’ he began at last abruptly.  ‘Another thing,’ said Marie, knowing that the hour had come.  ‘Yes;—another thing. I daresay you know what it is. I need not tell you now that I love you, need I, Marie? You know as well as I do what I think of you.’  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Marie, not intending to encourage him to tell her, but simply saying that which came easiest to her at the moment.  ‘I 

 Prev. P 15/132 next